Note (return) — REPLIES.

The proverbial expression, "Under the rose," appears opportunely in p. 214, beautifully illustrated4, but still deserving further consideration. Schedius (De Diis Gemanis) and others have, with much learning, shown Venus Urania to be the same as Isis Myrionyma. With erudition not inferior, but in support of a peculiar theory, Gorop. Bacanus maintains Harpocrates and Cupido, son of Venus Uranis, to be one and the same hieroglyphical character. I shall now endeavour to explain the symbolism and dedication of the Rose. This "flower of flowers" adumbrates the highest faculty of human nature—Reason, and Silence, or the rest of the reasoning powers, which is indicated by the Greek term [Greek: epistaemae], science. (See Harris's Philosoph. Arrang. p. 444., and Hermes, p. 369.). To whom, then, could the hieroglyphical rose have been more appropriately dedicated than Harpocrates, who is described with his finger pointing to his mouth—tacito plenus amore—a proper emblem of that silence with which we ought to behave in religious matters.