'... In addition to the adoration practised by the Egyptians of Osiris, Iris, and the higher divinities, they worshipped a large number of animals, paying an especial respect to the cat.'—Vol. I. p. 73.
The Historic Muse supported by the veracious historians.
Frontispiece to Vol. I.
In this sketch Monsieur Rollin is archly classed among the ranks of the writers of fiction—a position to which he is entitled from the remarkable nature of the facts he gravely puts on record.
'Until the reign of Psammeticus the Egyptians were believed to be the most ancient people on the earth. Wishing to assure themselves of this antiquity, they employed a most remarkable test, if the statement is worthy of credit. Two children, just born of poor parents, were shut up in two separate cabins in the country, and a shepherd was directed to feed them on goat's milk. (Others state that they were nourished by nurses whose tongues had been cut out.) No one was permitted to enter the cabins, and no word was ever allowed to be pronounced in their presence. One day, when these children arrived at the age of two years, the shepherd entered to bring them their usual food, when each of them, from their different divisions, extending their hands to the keeper, cried, "Beccos, beccos." This word, it was discovered, was employed by the Phrygians to signify bread; and since that period this nation has enjoyed, above all other peoples, the honour of the earliest antiquity.'—Vol. I. p. 162.
Triumphant Statue of Scipio Africanus.—End of Vol. I.