swims a river, the waters of which are as dark as those of the fabled Styx, and over which he sees floating the disembodied spirits of the departed, whose mournful wailings reach his ears; ascends stairs, of which every step disappears as he mounts the next, rendering his return impossible; and, catching at something which he sees above his head as the last step disappears from beneath his feet, he is whirled round and round by the fury of a blast which resembles the combined force of Boreas and Eurus, untit he nearly loses his senses, and is upon the point of falling from sheer exhaustion. The dangers of this preliminary passage through the elements were not wholly imaginary, for Pythagoras, who was initiated at the same place, is recorded to have nearly lost his life. When the young Athenian recovers, he finds himself in a comfortable bed, where he is served with wine by two boys clothed in white linen, and a venerable priest addresses a discourse to him upon the immortality of the soul. He is afterwards shewn a glimpse of the Elysian fields, where noble-looking youths and lovely female forms wander through groves of evergreens, and among the most gorgeous flowers; and in a luminous circle—suggesting the idea of the Memphian priests having availed themselves of some such apparatus as is used for the exhibition of dissolving views-he beholds the happy spirits soaring upward to the glorious throne of the Eternal and the mansions of the blest. These artistic contrivances for creating an impression upon the mind of the young philosopher are supported by discourses from the venerable hierophant upon the nature of the soul; and the aspirant, alternately awed and attracted, and led on by the hope of meeting the lovely priestess, is at last led at night into the sanctuary of the goddess, whose resplendent image is concealed by a veil reaching from the ceiling to the floor. The initiation of Alciphron is not completed, for the priestess of whom he is in search, and who is secretly a Christian, enters the sanctuary before the curtain rises, and guiding the young Athenian through the subterraneans, they effect their escape together.

The mysteries of Osiris, alluded to by Apuleius, were probably identical with those of Serapis, which were introduced at Rome in the reign of Antoninus Pius, A.D. 146. They were celebrated annually on the 6th May; but so much licentiousness had by that time come to be mixed up with the mysteries, that they were shortly afterwards abolished by a decree of the senate. The Isiac mysteries were also introduced into Italy under the emperors, but those of Mithra were confined to the East. It appears from the eighth chapter of Ezekiel that both the Isiac and Mithraic mysteries, as well as the festival of Adonis, had been introduced at Jerusalem in the time of that prophet; and the description there given of them agrees with the accounts which have come down to us from the Greek writers. The Isiac rites are described as being performed in a secret subterranean within the temple; and Plutarch tells us of the Egyptian temples, that they 'in one place enlarge and extend into long wings and fair open aisles; in another, sink into dark and secret subterranean vestries, like the abdita of the Thebans.' None but princes, generals, and the priests were admitted to them, save when an exception was made in favour of some distinguished foreign philosopher or legislator, as in the case of Pythagoras; and the Jewish prophet says, that they were celebrated in the temple at

Jerusalem by 'seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel.' His description of the figures portrayed upon the walls also agrees with what the Greek writers relate of the mystic cells of Isis and Osiris, and with the sculptures on the Bembine Table, supposed to have been used in these very rites. The Orphic mysteries, celebrated by the Thracians, were the same as those of Bacchus, subsequently introduced into Italy, but suppressed on account of their licentiousness. Of this corruption of the mysteries we shall presently have to speak. The mysteries of Semele, celebrated every ninth year at Delphi, contained a dramatic representation of the descent of Bacchus to Hades to bring back his mother Semele, who was destroyed, as every one acquainted with the Greek mythology knows, through the machinations of the jealous Juno. In all the pagan mysteries, indeed, something of this sort was included in the shows, as will presently be explained. The mysteries of the Cabiri were, according to Sanchoniatho, first celebrated by the Phoenicians, and introduced into Greece by the Pelasgi; they were performed with much solemnity at Thebes, and also in the islands of Lemnos, Samothracia, and Imbros. The Cabiri were subordinate divinities, sometimes confounded with the Corybantes; their parentage is ascribed by Herodotus to Vulcan, and their power in protecting their worshippers from storm and shipwreck was supposed to be very great. As in the mysteries of Isis, so in those of the Cabiri, none but princes, magistrates, generals, and the priests, were allowed to be initiated. The mysteries continued to be observed for many centuries, those of Ceres for a period of 1800 years; but some of them were more famous and more extensively celebrated than others, the chief being in Egypt those of Isis, and in Greece those of Ceres. The latter, commonly called the Eleusinian mysteries, from the name of the place where they were celebrated, came in time to absorb all the other Grecian mysteries, which were neglected for those of Ceres; and all the chief inhabitants of Greece and Asia Minor were initiated into them. Cicero says that the initiated were spread all over the Roman Empire, and even beyond its limits; and Zosimus says, that 'these most holy rites were then so extensive as to take in the whole race of mankind.' Warburton ascribes this superior eminence of the Eleusinian mysteries to the fact of Athens being regarded as the standard in matters of religion to the rest of the ancient world, and quotes Sophocles, who calls it 'the sacred building of the gods,' and Aristides, who describes the temple at Eleusis as 'the common temple of the earth;' but the similarity of the mysteries probably had some influence in leading to their absorption into those of Ceres, as well as the religious fame of the city near which the latter were celebrated.

The mysteries of Ceres were celebrated by the Athenians every fifth year, but by the Lacedæmonians and Cretans every fourth year. They are believed to have been introduced at Athens about the year B. C. 1356, but by whom is uncertain; and it was so even to the ancients themselves-some ascribing their introduction to Eumolpus, a Thracian; some to Erestheus, king of Athens; a third party to Museus; and a fourth to the goddess herself. Diodorus Siculus attributes their institution to Erectheus; and this opinion was adopted by the learned Warburton, who thought that the Athenians in aftertimes confounded the introducer of the mysteries with

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the priests who first officiated at their celebration-Eumolpus and Musæus —and the goddess upon whose worship they were ingrafted. Persons of both sexes were admitted to a participation in the mysteries; but in the first ages of the institution they were required to be citizens of Athens or their wives; at a later period, all persons who presented themselves for initiation, except slaves, and those whom the Greeks called barbarians, were freely admitted. It was believed that the initiated would be happier in a future state of existence than those who had not participated in these rites; and that the souls of the latter, clogged with the grossness of earth, wandered restlessly in Hades, while those of the former winged their way at once to the realms of eternal blessedness. Not that they believed that the ceremony of initiation in itself exercised this influence over the future destiny of the soul, but because it was the chief purpose of the mysteries to restore the soul to its primal purity, and fit it for its celestial habitation. Plato and Epictetus concur in this view of them. Thus,' says the latter, the mysteries become useful: thus we seize the true spirit of them; for everything therein was instituted by the ancients for instruction and amendment of life.' The beautiful episode of Psyche in the work of Apuleius, which has been described, supports this view of the mysteries; and indeed the author bears the same testimony to the moral purpose of the mysteries of Isis as the philosophers mentioned above do to that of the Eleusinian rites. Hence the aspirants were required to be of unblemished reputation, and free from even the suspicion of having committed any heinous crime; and we learn from Plutarch that they were rigidly interrogated by the presiding priest upon this matter. Suetonius relates that the execrable Nero, when he made a visit to Greece after the murder of his mother, wished to be initiated into the mysteries of Ceres, but was deterred by the voice of conscience telling him that he was a parricide; and Marcus Antoninus became initiated, to clear himself before the world of the blood of Avidius Cassius, because it was well known that none were admitted who were believed to have been guilty of any crime. 'When you sacrifice or pray,' says Epictetus, 'go with a prepared purity of mind, and with dispositions so previously disposed as are required of you when you approach the ancient rites and mysteries.' The longer any one had been initiated, the more respect and honour he was held in; and not to have been initiated was regarded as a mark of impiety, or a proof of secret guilt. It was one of the charges against Socrates, that he had not been initiated into the secret rites of Ceres; and among other philosophers who neglected them we may mention Epicurus and Demonax. Warburton concludes, from two lines of Sophocles, that initiation into these mysteries was considered as necessary by the pagans as baptism was by the Christians; and infers from a remark of Apuleius that children were initiated; but this may be doubted. The ancient writers sometimes spoke of persons as children who were twenty-five years of age; and the author in question merely says, that men and women of all ages were initiated. Generally speaking, no fee was charged for admission to the mysteries; but Aristogiton obtained a law, at a time when the public treasury was very low, that every one should pay a certain sum for his initiation.

IV.

In the celebration of these rites everything was veiled in mystery, and the most inviolable secrecy was required from those who were initiated. This mystery stimulated curiosity, and caused the rites to be regarded with religious awe and profound veneration by the uninitiated. 'Ignorance of the mysteries,' says Synesius, ' preserves their veneration; for which reason they are intrusted to the cover of night.' Euripides, in the second act of his 'Bacchantes,' makes Bacchus say that the rites were celebrated by night, because there is in darkness a peculiar solemnity which fills the mind with religious awe. Any one discovered in the temple during the celebration of the mysteries without having been admitted with the usual inquiries and preliminary ceremonies, whether through ignorance or from profane curiosity, was put to death; and the same fate awaited him who, having been initiated, afterwards revealed the secrets that were set forth in mystery. Diagoras divulged the mysteries of Bacchus and Ceres, and dissuaded his friends from being initiated, which swelled the clamour his atheistic opinions had already raised against him into a cry for vengeance; and a reward being offered for his head by the Areopagus, he was forced to fly from the state. Eschylus narrowly escaped the same fate, from a suspicion that he had dimly shadowed forth something represented in the mysteries in a scene of one of his tragedies.

The mysteries were divided into the greater and lesser, the latter being celebrated at Agræ, near the Ilissus : these were said to have been originally instituted for the purpose of admitting Hercules, but it is probable that it was the aim of the founder to make them, what they afterwards became, a kind of preparation for the greater rites. The aspirants for initiation into the lesser mysteries were required to observe nine days of strict purity, during which they sojourned at Agræ, and bathed in the Ilissus ; at the end of that period they repaired to the temple of Ceres, wearing garlands of flowers upon their heads, and offered prayers and sacrifices, standing before the altar upon the skin of some victim which had been offered to Jupiter. The initiation followed, consisting of certain mystical rites, the sole design of which appears to have been to excite the curiosity of the people, and prepare them for the secrets to be afterwards disclosed in the greater mysteries. According to some of the ancient writers, the period between the initiation of the aspirant into the lesser mysteries and his admission to the greater was one year, at the end of which those who had been initiated at Agræ sacrificed a sow to Ceres; but Tertullian says that the period of probation was five years.

The greater mysteries were celebrated in September, and lasted nine days, commencing on the 15th and concluding on the 23d. During this period it was unlawful to arrest any person or present any petition, the penalty being the forfeiture of a thousand drachmas, or, according to other accounts, death. At Sparta, those who rode to the temple of Ceres in chariots at this time were fined six hundred drachmas, in accordance with an edict of Lycurgus, designed to level the barriers which artificial distinctions raised between the richer and poorer orders of the citizens. On

the first day of this festival, the most important in the Pagan calendar, the candidates for initiation into the higher mysteries first met together at Athens, where, on the following day, they bathed in the sea. On the third day barley and other things were offered to Ceres; and these oblations were considered so sacred, that even the priests, though they were accustomed to partake of the offerings, were not permitted to do so in this instance. On the fourth day there was a solemn procession through the streets of Athens, when the holy basket of Ceres was carried in a consecrated chariot, followed by women bearing baskets of carded wool, salt, pomegranates, certain cakes, boughs of ivy, &c., and greeted every. where with joyful shouts of 'Hail, Ceres!' The next day of the festival was called the torch day,' because the votaries of the goddess ran about the streets with flaming torches in their hands, in commemoration of her lighting a torch at the crater of Mount Etna, when searching for her daughter Proserpine, carried off by Pluto, the grim king of Tartarus. The pomegranates borne in the procession on the preceding day were likewise an allusion to this adventure of the fair Proserpine, who was said to have partaken of that fruit while in the infernal regions. There was much competition on the torch day, as to who should carry the largest torch, which was consecrated to Ceres. The sixth day was a grand one, and was called after Iacchus, the son of Jupiter and Ceres, who was fabled to have accompanied his mother with a torch in her search after her lost daughter; the statue of Iacchus, with a torch in the right hand, was carried in procession from the Ceramicus to Eleusis, the statue and those who bore and accompanied it being crowned with myrtle, and preceded by choristers and musicians, playing all kinds of noisy instruments of brass. The road from Athens to Eleusis, which on this occasion was crowded with persons of both sexes and all conditions, was called the Sacred Way, and between the two places there were two resting-spots, at which the procession halted--the first being near a remarkable fig-tree, and the second on the bridge over the Cephisus. Eleusis was entered by an avenue called the Mystical Way, and from this time till the conclusion of the festivities and rites, became thronged with strangers from all parts of Greece. On the seventh day various gymnastic sports were celebrated, the victor in each being rewarded with a measure of barley, from a tradition that that grain had been first sown in the neighbourhood of Eleusis. The next day was distinguished by the celebration of the lesser mysteries, which were repeated at that time in order that those who had not hitherto been initiated into them might be lawfully admitted to the greater; but the origin of this repetition was traditionally assigned to the circumstance that Esculapius, returning on that day from Epidaurus to Athens, was then qualified for initiation into the higher mysteries by the repetition of the inferior ones. On the ninth

day the solemnities commenced by the priests placing two earthen vessels, filled with wine, before the temple, one towards the east, the other towards the west, which, after the priests had pronounced over them certain mystical words, were thrown down, and the wine, being spilled, was offered as a libation to the gods.

At night the candidates, crowned with myrtle, were admitted into the vast temple of the mysteries, and were received by the hierophant and his three attendants, the officer called Basileus, and ten inferior officers, who