goddess crowned, and at her feet the waves of a river and a man swimming as usual, but he had horns on his head." ibid. Now the sight of the horns staggered him much, and induced him to alter his former opinion; not that he conceived the man with the horns to be a victim of the inconstancy of his goddess, at whose feet he lays prostrate, and even seems to be peeping; no, he obtained his horns in a more honourable way for the author had read in Indian accounts, that when the river Ganges leaves the mountains, where its sources are, and enters the adjacent plains, "it runs through some narrow rocks, which the natives call the cow's mouth." p. 15. Hence it occurred to the author, "that the above type alluded, beyond all contradiction, to the horns on the cow's head, through which rock the river Ganges passes." p. 16. So that the Indians, who settled in Syria, brought the cow's horns along with them, when they left India, and placed them on their own heads, as a memorial of their origin from the bank of the Ganges; and thus these symbols confirm the accounts both of scripture and profane historians. He adds, "this medal is further applicable to our purpose, as the goddess sits on a seat decorated with a figure of a griffin; that is, a lion and eagle united, (two mountains on our principles)." These mountains, however, are now no longer the heads of Mount Taurus, but the mountains in which the Ganges has its source-" and in combining these ideas it is impossible not to admit their perfect correspondence, though employed in distant parts of the globe, as being repetitions of the original emblems adopted by these colonies, which had quitted the region of their nativity, but not forgotten its memorials." So that that here we have these symbols and the science of bullism only at second hand, in imitation of those invented by the earliest descendants from the ark of Noah, after it had rested on Mount Taurus; but thus the original bull's horns are now turned into a cow's horns and as it might be still doubtful what that goddess has to do here, he informs us, "that it is the image of the Indian god Vistnou, in a female form, as giving birth to the river Ganges." p. 15. And why should not a god be transformed into a goddess, as well as a bull into a cow, or a cow, suckling its calf, into a bull giving suck. This is all so sublimely mystical and so wildly ingenious, concerning the antiquities of mankind, that well may we say of the author with Ovid, "In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas Et Noah, ad hæc deducite tempora mythos." All this far exceeds even the bright imagination of Mr. Bryant, that the man swimming in the river represented the desolation caused by the deluge; and how superior are both these explications of such medals to that of Noris? who could give no better account of the goddess on such medals, than the simple explication of its being "Urbis imago turrita monticulum insidens et habens subtus figuram fluminis, quo urbs alluitur, et vivum ex undis emergentem." p. 247 and 345 which is too suitable to the abovementioned information of Ælian to be true, that the ancients denoted rivers sometimes by male and sometimes by female figures; and sometimes also by a vir cornutus: but how how the ancients came by these horns is now for the first time perfectly cleared up. "The mural crown also on the female head is now shewn to be the high crowned diadem of Vistnou; and that Noah himself drank out of the river Ganges at the cow's mouth." In fine, it is not possible for me to do justice to all the good things in this new antiquarian novel; but I will exhibit one example more which proves, beyond all dispute, that three human feet, found sometimes impressed on medals, were symbols of the three heads of Mount Taurus. S. ART. XIX. Andrew Stuart's Letters and Douglas Case. [CONTINEUD FROM VOL. V. P. 299.] I have waited thus long for a sight of the printed Case on the part of the Duke of Hamilton, before I proceeded to continue the review of this subject; but as I have not obtained it, I shall now proceed without it. All the attention which I can give to the circumstantial and tedious Case of Mr. Douglas only confirms still more deeply the conviction I expresed on the first perusal of Stuart's Letters. I had not a particle of doubt then; if I had, it would now have vanished. A recurrence to the arguments of Mr. Stuart, and a reconsideration of them, after all that has ingeniously Jaboured on the other side, (for very ingenious Mr. Douglas's Case certainly is) induces me to pronounce them unanswerable. If they struck me as able and perspicuous VOL, VI. F perspicuous at first, they appear to me still more so, after escaping from the labyrinth of the other side. Nor are they to be considered as merely applicable to a particular case. They contain an able elucidation of some of the general principles of evidence, drawn both from powerful reasoning, and a deep insight tnto the human character. Whoever peruses these Letters may learn some practical wisdom; and be consoled by finding that there are rules of proof, arising from the accumulated experience of acute minds, which not the ablest and most plausible judge can depart from, undetected, and with impunity. I do not believe that there will be found a lawyer hardy enough to impugn Mr. Stuart's exposition of such parts of the laws of evidence, as he has had occasion to recur to. And as little do I believe that any one will venture to reconcile the conduct of Lord Mansfield in this case to those laws, if his arguments were such as Mr. Stuart states them to have been; which statement as I am not aware that either Lord Mansfield or his friends ever publicly denied, I must presume to be true. I do not blame the advocates who drew up Mr. Douglas's case. It was their business to make the best of their client's cause,-with this exception, that they ought not to have fallen into the scheme of their employer's agents to sacrifice the character of Mr. Stuart for it; more especially, as it seems, as if in private most of them were convinced of his uprightness. But in my mind their very mode of treating and labouring the case proves their consciousness of its weakness. Else why be dwelling on ten thousand minute and trifling points, and be endeavouring to puzzle puzzle and fritter away the attention, when the whole turned on two or three leading hinges? It is the mark of little minds to be hanging upon the scent, and unravelling little intricacies, instead of striking at the main clue, of which all the minor windings must necessarily follow the course. The truly infamous attempt to create prejudices, and destroy the fair operation of evidence by base insinuations and cruel invectives against the character and conduct of Mr. Stuart, who was the principal conductor of the Duke of Hamilton's interest, appears to me in itself to furnish insuperable presumptions against his opponents. We have, alas! had subsequent glaring proof, that this is the trick of perfidious, false, and revengeful, hired opponents, to those who have been seeking their just rights of inheritance! And, what is still more melancholy, that the trick has been again successful! Were it not that the same depravity of heart too often suggests the same expedients, I should almost suppose that the line of conduct in the last case was borrowed from the former ! * Mr. Stuart is accused not merely of uncandid conduct, but of leading witnesses, and of instituting a French process, called the Tournelle, for the purpose of manufacturing evidence. The injustice of these accusations will be proved, before I close, by the testimony of men, whose situation in life and opportunity of judging put their assertions beyond suspicion. Yet, painful as is the remark, there can be but little doubt It is but too apparent that some of the persons who took an active part in the case alluded to, had been poaching very industriously in Mr. Douglas's case, from a strange coincidence of a variety of singular expressions, which at the time I much wondered at, but now trace to their source. |