pointed offerings of the Jews. Goats were the most common sacrifices in India; but for these it was permitted to substitute spirits or fermented liquors. But the great sacrifice which monarchs performed to obtain their dearest wishes, and which indeed required a monarch's revenue to accomplish, was the Aswamedha, or sacrifice of a horse. The steed intended for that purpose was to be young, unbroke, pure, and free from blemish, and he was allowed to ramble unconfined for twelve months previous to the ceremony; but if during that time any one laid his hand upon him, he was rendered unfit for the purpose, and the preparations which were both expensive and tedious were to begin anew. The Ramayuna begins the history of Rama with the description of the Aswamedha performed by Dasaratha to obtain a son; and it appears that on this solemn occasion all the neighbouring monarchs were invited, and the Brahmins from every surrounding nation assembled; artificers from every country were employed in erecting the wood-work for the ceremony, and, it is to be supposed, the temporary shelter for the immense multitude that assembled to share the largesses distributed by the monarch. The poet says, that during the whole time, the words, Give! Eat! were everywhere heard, and serving-men in sumptuous apparel

distributed food. The voice of the holy Brahmins repeating the sacred texts, was heard amidst the songs of gladness in the streets, and at length, when the horse returned from his journey of a year, he was sacrificed with transports of joy. Pits lined with bricks had been prepared for the altars, that the blood and the water of oblations might flow round them; these pits were arranged in the form of Garoora the divine eagle, and those of the wings were lined with bricks of gold; three hundred other animals, birds, beasts, and fishes, were sacrificed at the same time, by the sixteen officiating priests, appointed by Dasaratha; and the chief priest then took out their hearts, and dressed them according to the law of sacrifices, carefully observing the omens, which promised happiness and the accomplishment of his wishes to the King. The most ancient Greek and Tuscan ceremonies appear to have resembled these in many, if not most particulars; but the he roes of Homer were too impetuous to wait so long for the fulfilment of their vows, as the great Aswamedha required. They no sooner reached the destined place of worship, but they

"Their hecatomb prepar❜d;

"Between their horns the salted barley threw,

"And with their heads to heaven the victim slew." Pope's Homer, b. i.

Z

1

But I dare say you will think this enough of sanguinary sacrifices. Of other offerings I have spoken in describing the ceremonies of hospitality, marriages, and funerals. They consist of milk, water, honey, fruit, seeds, and flowers, besides butter and curds, with which on many occasions the barley and other seeds are moistened.

These simple acknowledgments of the goodness of the Deity are certainly more pleasing than the former sacrifices. But the universal belief in the fall of man from a state of happiness and innocence, and the consequent necessity for a means of propitiating the offended Deity, has over the whole of the ancient world produced: the same effects; and feeble man, eager to avert punishment from himself, or to draw it down upon his enemies, has often been led to the commission of crimes revolting to nature, under the idea, that a great and painful sacrifice was alone meritorious in the eyes of the God of mercy and forgiveness!

Happily those days of darkness have passed away; and that there is not now a spot upon the earth, where a human victim is deliberately sacrificed, and scarcely any where even an ani mal bleeds upon the altar, is a sufficient answer to the cant of those who are daily lamenting the deterioration of mankind, and the corruption of the world in general.

LETTER XVI.

MY DEAR SIR,

I AM not surprised that you find it difficult to reconcile the enormous absurdity and horrible superstitions I mentioned in my last letter, with those sublime notions of the Deity implied in the account of the creation of the world, by the simple thought of the Self-existent Intelligence. But you must remember that the one is the belief of the philosopher, the other that of the multitude, and that even Lycurgus could do no more when he reformed Sparta, than to change the human victims offered to Diana upon its altars, into those severe flagellations, which often proved real sacrifices, and which were regarded as honourable in proportion to the blood spilt in the sight of the goddess.

I am not fond of the Hindû mythology, but I do not on the whole think worse of it than of that of the West, excepting indeed that its fictions have employed less elegant pens. When Apollo, crowned with light and surrounded by the Muses, wakes the golden lyre, and harmonizes heaven and earth; or Love and the Graces move in magic dance on the delicious shores of Pa

phos, we Westerns feel, as Akenside expresses

it,

"The form of beauty smiling at our heart."

But the graceful Crishna with his attendant nymphs moving in mystic unison with the Seasons, and the youthful Camdeo, tipping his arrows with the budding floweret, are images scarcely inferior in beauty, and have waked the poet's song as sweetly on the banks of Sona or Godavery as the triumphs of the ocean-born goddess on those of "smooth sliding Mincius."

However this be, I will endeavour to give you an intelligible account of the deities of Hindostan, premising that there are parts of their mythology over which the veil of mystery is, and ought to be spread.

The creation of the gods is supposed to be coeval with that of the world, and when the Supreme Intelligence called the universe into being, he delegated to the gods the creation of mankind, and the formation and government of all mundane objects. Brahma, the creating energy, with Vishnu the preserver, and Siva, the destroyer, were the greatest of the deities; and there is a mysterious fable concerning a great sacrifice offered up by the immortals in which Brahma was the oblation, and from his different members the different classes of mankind are said to have sprung. But leaving the