But, sir, the symbols are _coeval_, imprinted _together_ upon those edifices at the _very moment_ of their construction; and, therefore, “no process of time” was required to amalgamate a religion whose god (it is true) was Apollo, but which was already inseparable, and, though compound, one. [Illustration] I have before established the sameness of design which belonged, indifferently, to _solar_ worship and to _phallic_. I shall, ere long, prove that the same characteristic extends equally to _ophiolatreia_; and if _they all three be identical_, as it thus necessarily follows, where is the occasion for surprise at our meeting the _sun_, _phallus_, and _serpent_, the constituent symbols of each, _embossed upon the same table_, and _grouped_ under the same _architrave_? “Here,” says a correspondent in the supplement to the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ of August last, “we have the umbilicated _moon_ in her state of opposition to the sun, and the sign of fruitfulness. She was also, in the doctrines of Sabaism, the northern gate, by which Mercury conducted souls to birth, as mentioned by Homer in his description of the Cave of the Nymphs, and upon which there remains a commentary by Porphyry. Of this cave Homer says-- ‘Fountains it had eternal, and two gates, The northern one to men admittance gives; That to the south is more divine--a way Untrod by men, t’ immortals only known.’ “The _Cross_, in Gentile rites, was the symbol of reproduction and resurrection. It was, as Shaw remarks, ‘the same with the ineffable image of eternity that is taken notice of by Suidas.’ The _Crescent_ was the lunar ship or ark that bore, in Mr. Faber’s language, the Great Father and the Great Mother over the waters of the deluge; and it was also the emblem of the boat or ship which took aspirants over the lakes or arms of the sea to the Sacred Islands, to which they resorted for initiation into the mysteries: and over the river of death to the mansions of Elysium; the _Cockatrice_ was the snake-god. It was also the basilisk or cock-adder. ‘Habet caudem ut coluber, residuum vero corpus ut gallus.’ The Egyptians considered the basilisk as the emblem of eternal ages: ‘esse quia vero videtur ζωῆς κυριεύειν καὶ θανάτον, ex auro conformatum capitibus deorum appingebant Ægyptii.’ What relation had this with the Nehustan or Brazen Serpent, to which the Israelites paid divine honours in the time of Hezekiah? What is the circle with the seasons at the equinoxes and solstices marked upon it?--the signs of the four great pagan festivals celebrated at the commencement of each of these seasons? The corner of the stone which is broken off probably contained some symbol. I am not hierophant enough to unriddle and explain the hidden tale of this combination of hieroglyphics. We know that the sea-goat and the Pegasus on tablets and centeviral stones, found on the walls of Severus and Antoninus, were badges of the second, and the boar of the twentieth