The relation of the sign to the thing signified, was in some measure founded on the known or pretended qualities of the latter. The Egyptian Horsemarten was of that kind; an image of the sun, because his species was said to have no female, and to live six months under and six above ground[200]. In like manner the cat, being supposed to bring forth a number of kittens equal to that of the days in a month, became the symbol of Isis, or the moon[201]. The Greeks, on the contrary, endowed with more wit, and undoubtedly with more sensibility, made use of no signs but such as had a true relation to the thing signified, or were most agreeable to the senses: all their deities they invested with human forms[202]. Wings, among the Egyptians, were the symbol of eager and effectual services; a symbol conformable to their nature, and continued by the Greeks: and if the Attick _Victoria_ had none, it was meant to signify, that she had chosen Athens for her abode[203]. A goose, among the Egyptians, was the symbol of a cautious leader; in consequence of which the prows of their ships were formed like geese[204]. This the Greeks preserved also, and the ancient _Rostrum_ resembled the neck of a goose[205]. Of all the figures, whose relation to their intended meaning is somewhat obscure, the Sphinx perhaps alone was continued by the Greeks. Placed in the front of a temple, it was, among the Greeks, almost as instructive, as it was significant among the Egyptians[206]. The Greek Sphinx was winged[207], its head bare, without that stole which it wears on some Attick coins[208]. It was in general a characteristic of the Greeks, to mark their productions with a certain chearfulness: the muses love not hideous phantoms: and Homer himself, when by the mouth of some god he cites an Egyptian allegory, always cautiously begins with “WE ARE TOLD.” Nay, the elder Pampho[209], though he exceeds the Egyptian oddities, by his description of Jupiter wrapt up in horse-dung, approaches nevertheless the sublime idea of the English poet: _As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;_ _As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,_ _As the rapt seraph, that adores and burns._ Pope. It will be no easy matter to find, among the old Greek coins, an image like that of a snake encircling an egg[210], on a Syrian coin of the third century. None of their monuments are marked with any thing ghastly: of these they were, if possible, still more cautious than of ill-omen’d words. The image of death is not to be seen, perhaps, but on one gem[211], and that in the shape commonly exhibited at their feasts[212]; _viz._ dancing to a flute, with intent to make them enjoy the present pleasures of life, by reminding them of its shortness. On another gem[213], with a Roman inscription, there is a skeleton, with two butterflies as images of the soul, one of which is caught by a bird; a pretended symbol of the metempsychosis: but the performance is of latter times.