Memnon. 1G9 embosomed in a grove sacred to the River Nymphs ^^ As to the story of the birds, by which Mr J. thinks his hypothesis is confirmed, I can only say that I can discover no ground for assuming that the Memnonides were the original type after which all the other animals of the same class, the birds of Diomed, of Meleager, of Achilles^, were invented, or that any of these legends were founded on anything more than obser- vations more or less correct on the habits of birds in particular places, which were naturally connected with local legends. Any one who reads the stories Pliny has collected in the tenth book of his history about birds of passage, will very easily understand what ample materials the popular imagination might find in them^^. It will not be irrelevant, before we quit this part of the subject, to remark that, though Mr J.'s reflexions on the gloomy character of the Egyptian worship, and the contrast between it and the Greek are in general very just, still there is a very important branch of the Greek religion to which they are not applicable, and this is, the rites celebrated in honour of the dead. These rites were necessarily of a funereal character, and all festivals of which they formed a part presented a dark as well as a light side'^'. The original distinction between the worship of the gods and that of the heroes was never effaced, though it was sometimes difficult to ascertain which was most properly due, as in the cases of Hercules, Achilles, ^^ Quint. Calab. II. 588. ryjL n-e l^v/mcpdcov KaWiirXo iia.vwv TreXei dXcro^ KaXou, o mj jneTOTTLorde fxaKpov Trepl crrifx kpaXovTO Aiai]7rolo dvyaTpe?, ddfjv Trc/rvKacrueuov vXri UavToly.
- ^ On the transformation of Diomede's companions into birds, Strab. vi. p. 284. On
the Meleagrides, Pliny N. H. x. 38. Simili modo pugnant Meleagrides in Boeotia — Meleagri tumulus nobilis. Aelian H. A. iv. 42. In Philostratus, Heroic, p. 746, the birds perform the same office at the temple of Achilles as at the tomb of Memnon: koct- fxovvTa's avTU) to aXaro^ tco T€ dve/JLCo timv irTepcou, Kal Tal^ air avTcZv pauiai, "^^ To select one specimen: c. 31. Pythonos comen vocant in Asia patentibus campis, ubi congregatae (ciconiae) inter se commurmurant, eamque quae novissime advenit, lacerant. Such congregations would most frequently take place, or at least would attract most attention, on solitary hillocks. The Seleucides mentioned in c. 39 seem to have owed their name to Greek flattery. '*7 See the description of the Hyacinthia in Athen. p. 139. Philostratus, Heroic. p. 740, observes, to fxev KoptpdiMU eirl MeXucepn-rj ,. .kuI oirocra ol avToi opMaiv eirl Tois iTtj? Mt;06ta9 Traia-hf — dpijvu) eucaa-TaL TcXecrTUcw tg Kal ei/ueo). Vol. I. No. 4. Y
