It has been likewise observed, that[214] among those myriads of altars, sacred even to the most whimsical deities, there never was one set apart to death; save only on the solitary coasts, which were deemed the borders of the world[215]. The Romans, in their best times, thought like the Greeks; and always, in adopting the iconology of a foreign nation, traced the footsteps of these their masters. An elephant, one of the latter mysterious symbols of the Egyptians[216] (for there is on the most ancient monuments neither elephant[217] nor hart, ostrich nor cock, to be found), was the image of different things[218], and perhaps of eternity, as on some Roman[219] coins, because of his longevity. But on a coin of the emperor Antoninus, this animal, with the inscription, MUNIFICENTIA, cannot possibly hint at any other thing but the grand games, the magnificence of which was augmented by those animals. But it is no more my design to attempt an inquiry into the origin of every allegorical symbol among the Greeks and Romans, than to write a system of allegory. All I propose is, to defend what I have advanced concerning it, and at the same time to direct the artist to the images of those ancients, in preference to the iconologies and ill-judged symbols of some moderns. We may, from a little specimen, form a judgment of the turn of mind of those ancients, and of the possibility of subjecting abstracted ideas to the senses. The symbols of many a gem, coin, and monument, enjoy their fixed and universally received interpretation; but some of the most memorable, not yet brought to a proper standard, deserve a nearer determination. Perhaps the allegory of the ancients might be divided, like painting and poetry in general, into two classes, _viz._ the _sublime_, and the _more vulgar_. Symbols of the one might be those by which some mythological or philosophical allusion, or even some unknown or mysterious rite, is expressed. Such as are more commonly understood, _viz._ personified virtues, vices, _&c._ might be referred to the other. The images of the former give to performances of the art the true epick grandeur: one single figure is sufficient to give it: the more it contains, the sublimer it is: the more it engages our attention, the deeper it penetrates, and we of course feel it the more. The ancients, in order to represent a child dying in his bloom, painted him carried off by Aurora[220]: a striking image! taken, perhaps, from the custom of burying youths at day-break. The ideas of the bulk of our artists, in this respect, are too trivial to be mentioned here.