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dens watched by dragons, and in the inchantments and worship of idolatrous nations, in whose incantations and fuperftitions, the ferpent always bore, as it bears ftill, a principal part. Allegorize Mofes as much as you please, he relates that God promised that the woman's offspring would crush the ferpent's head. This very promise of a Redeemer, and man's victory through his grace, are foretold in the oracles of the Gentiles. Even Tacitus, though a mortal enemy to the Jews and Chriftians, acknowledges, that it was a conftant tradition amongst the Oriental nations, that from the Jews would fpring a conqueror, who would fubdue the world. A tranflator's mistake as to the name of a town or tower, is no plea for fcepticism, especially as there are and have been, several towns of the fame name in different places, which might have been the cafe with Syene; and cities which in a long fucceffion of time, have changed their names, or born different names at the fame time, as is the cafe with Conftantinople, which the Turks call Stamboul, and others Byzantium.

But let us fuppofe that the tower of Syene was fituated on the fame line, in an oppofite direction, with the frontiers of Ethiopia, is there any impropriety in faying, "I will ftrike "Egypt from the tower of Syene to the

"borders

"borders of Ethiopia?" Solinus relates, that there was a tower called Syene in lower Egypt. Ethiopia borders Egypt on the fouth. In ftriking Egypt, then, from the tower of Syene to the borders of Ethiopia, it is ftruck from north to fouth that is, from one extremity to the other. The doctor, then, has loft his time in correcting the prophet Ezechiel's map, and fubftituting Arabia for Ethiopia. Yet this paflage of Ezechiel is his chief plea for allegorizing Genefis with what fuccefs let the reader judge.

A warm fancy, in a paroxyfm of zeal, may indulge its boundless excurfions in the path of allegory, when obfcure paffages and myftical expreffions open a field for interpretations and allufions. Mead, Whiston, Wesley, and the doctor himself, may discover the pope in the beaft with ten horns; and Rome in the great city built on seven hills. The Jewish rabbins, after obtaining permiffion to build a fynagogue from the prince of Orange, applied to their benefactor, this famous paffage of Ifaiah: "On "that day, seven women will take hold of one "man" alluding to the Seven United Provinces that had elected him ftadtholder and I myfelf, if I were in humour, could, in a longwinded difcourfe, enlarge upon the feven facraments, or the three theological and four cardinal virtues; and compare them to the

feven golden candlesticks mentioned in the re velations of St. John. But in a historical narration, giving an account of the origin of the world,―of a garden planted with trees, watered with four rivers,-with their names,-the coun¬ tries through which they flow,-the precious ftones, mines and minerals, to be found in those countries, &c.-the introduction of an allegory is the fubversion of reason.

Even where allegories can be used with any propriety, our masters in rhetoric lay down as a rule," that, in the chain of metaphors conti“nued through the discourse, aptness, resem"blance, and juftnefs of allufion, must be "strictly observed." What juftness of allufion is there between the human mind, and a garden planted eastward in Eden, where God put the man whom he had created? As much as there is in saying, God made man, and placed him eastward in his mind. What analogy is there between the four rivers and the four cardinal virtues? between fortitude and Pifon or the Ganges, with the effeminate natives that inhabit its banks? Between prudence and the Euphrates ? Juftice and Gibon or the Nile, with its crocodiles? Temperance and Hiddekel or the Tygris, which, as Moses relates, and as geography informs us, goeth towards the east of Affyria, a country famous in former days for the intempe

rance

The four car

rance of its inhabitants ? dinal virtues being fet afloat on the four rivers, and the doctor's imagination having spent the fire of his allegory, we are at a lofs what virtue to defcribe by the onyx-ftone, mentioned by Mofes in the following words: "The name of the first river is Pifon; that is "it which compaffeth the land of Havilah, "where there is gold and the gold of that "land is good and there is bdellium and the "onyx-ftone." By gold, doubtless, he muft mean charity or patience. But of the onyx-flone there are four kinds : and we would be obliged to our dogmatizing philofophers for defcribing their four correspondent virtues.

Let them inform us, in like manner, whether the bdellium mentioned by Mofes, be one of the theological or a branch of the cardinal virtues. For though in difpenfatories, the bdellium be allowed to be a good noftrum of an emollient and difcutient quality, yet the learned, whether commentators of fcripture or natural philofophers, are no more agreed about the true nature of bdellium, than they are about the manner how it is produced and it is much doubted whether the bdellium of the ancients be the fame with the modern kind.

Thus, in the difputes about a drop of gum refin, the nature and production whereof per

plex the most learned, we difcover the weakness. of human reason. We cannot diffećt a fly; and we would fain comprehend the ways of Providence. We would fain found the unfathomable ocean of the Chriftian religion, and arraign its mysteries at the tribunal of a glimmering reafon, when the small atom that fwims on the furface, baffles our feverest scrutiny.

I have the honour to be, &c.

ARTHUR O'LEARY.

LETTER

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