Page:Proofs of the Enquiry into Homer's Life and Writings.pdf/61

Rh 48 Sect. IX.

Proof s os the Enquiry into

S E C T I O N

IX.


 * / I ^HE Egyptians, says the most learned

' Author of The divine Legation of In their funeral From this Progress the Author of the Enquiry seems to think that Orpheus and Homer, and the Poets who copied from them, borrowed their Description of the Postage of departed Souls to Hell; and quotes these remarkable Lines of Homer in support of it. They contain an Account of the Paflage of the Souls of the slaughtered Woers, whom Ulysses had slain, and whom Mer cury was conducting on their dreary Journey. P. 1 31. (c) W*} Pass'd & candent Rock, by Ocean's Streams ; ij6.(c; Then thro' the solar Gates, and Land of Dreams They traveled quick and reach'd the flowery Mead, Where Souls inhabit, Fantoms of the Dead. The Rh
 * Moses demonstrated, like all other People, in
 * their Descriptions of the Other World, used
 * to resemble it to something they were well
 * acquainted with in this.
 * Rites, which, as we observed, was with them
 * a Matter of greater Moment than with any
 * other Nation, they used to carry their Dead
 * over the Nile, and through the Marsh of
 * Acherufia, and there put 'em into Subter* raneous Vaults.'