(_For the Mirror._)
Hieroglyphics consist in certain symbols which are made to stand for
invisible objects, on account of some analogy which such symbols were
supposed to bear to the objects. Egypt was the country where this sort
of writing was most studied, and brought into a regular science. In
hieroglyphics was conveyed all the boasted knowledge of their priests.
According to the properties which they ascribed to animals, they chose
them to be the emblems of moral objects. Thus ingratitude was expressed
by a viper; imprudence, by a fly; wisdom, by an ant; knowledge, by an
eye; eternity, by a circle which has neither beginning nor end; a man
universally shunned, by an eel, which they supposed to be found with no
other fish. Sometimes they joined two or more of these characters
together, as a serpent with a hawk's head, denoted nature, with God
presiding over it.