images, and set in rings, &c. They were held as preservatives against all kinds of evils. There were other talismans taken from vegetables, and others from minerals.

Three kinds of Talismans were usually distinguished, viz. Astronomical, which are known by the signs or constellations of the heavens engraven upon them, with other figures, and some unintelligible characters. Magical, which bear very extraordinary figures, with superstitious words and names of angels unheard of. And mixt, which consist of signs and barbarous words; but have no superstitious ones, or names of angels.

It is maintained by some rabbins, that the brazen serpent raised by Moses in the Wilderness, for the destruction of the serpents that annoyed the Israelites, was properly a Talisman.

All the miraculous things wrought by Apollonius Tyanæus are attributed to the virtue and influence of Talismans; and that wizard, as he is called, is even said to have been the inventor of them.

Some authors take several Runic medals,-medals, at least, whose inscriptions are in the Runic characters, for talismans, it being notorious, that the northern nations, in their heathen state, were much devoted to them. M. Keder, however, has shewn, that the medals here spoken of are quite other things than talismans.

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PHILTERS, CHARMS, &c.

A DRUG, or other preparation, used as a pretended charm to excite love. These are distinguished into true and spurious: the spurious are spells or charms supposed to have an effect beyond the ordinary law of nature, by some inherent magic virtue; such are those said to be possessed formerly by old women, witches, &c.-The true Philters were supposed to operate by some natural and magnetical power. There are many enthusiastic and equally credulous authors, who have encouraged the belief in the reality of these Philters; and adduce matter in fact in confirmation of their opinions, as in all doubtful cases. Among these may be quoted Van Helmont, who says, that by holding a certain herb in his hand, and afterwards taking a little dog by the foot with the same hand, the animal followed him wherever he went, and quite deserted his former master. He also adds, that Philters only require a confirmation of Mumia*; and on this principle he accounts for the phenomena of love transplanted by the touch of an herb; for, says he, the heat communicated to the herb, not coming alone, but animated by the emanations of the natural spirits, determines the herb towards the man, and identifies it to him. Hav

By Mumia is here understood, that which was used by some ancient physicians for some kind of implanted spirit, found chiefly in carcases, when the infused spirit is fled; or kind of sympathetic influence, communicated from one body to another, by which magnetic cures, &c. were said to be performed. Now, however, deservedly exploded,

ing then received this ferment, it attracts the spirit of the other object magnetically, and gives it an amorous motion. But all this is mere absurdity, and has fallen to the ground with the other irrational hypothesis from the same source.

HELL,

A PLACE of punishment, where, we are told in Scripture, the wicked are to receive the reward of their evil deeds, after this life. In this sense, hell is the antithesis of HEAVEN.

Among the ancients hell was called by various names, Taprapos, Taprapa, Tartarus, Tartara; 'Adns, Hades, Infernus, Inferna, Inferi, &c.—The Jews, wanting a proper name for it, called it Gehenna, or Gehinnon, from a valley near Jerusalem, wherein was Tophet, or place where a fire was perpetually kept.

Divines reduce the torments of hell to two kinds, pœna damni, the loss and privation of the beatific vision; and pœna sensus, the horrors of darkness, with the continual pains of fire inextinguishable.

Most nations and religions have a notion of a hell. The hell of the poets is terrible enough: witness the punishment of Tityus, Prometheus, the Danæids, Lapithæ, Phlegyas, &c. described by Ovid, in his Metamorphosis. Virgil, after a survey of Hell, Æneid, lib. vi. declares, that if he had a hundred mouths and tongues, they would not suffice to recount all the plagues of the tortured. The New Testament represents hell as a lake of

fire and brimstone; and a worm which dies not, &c. Rev. xx. 10, 14, &c. Mark ix. 43, &c. Luke xvi. 23, &c.

The Caffres are said to admit thirteen hells, and twenty-seven paradises; where every person finds a place suited to the degree of good or evil he has done.

There are two great points of controversy among writers, touching hell :: the first, whether there be any local hell, any proper and specific place of torment by fire ? : the second, whether the torments of hell are to be eternal?

I. The locality of hell, and the reality of the fire thereof, have been controverted from the time of Origen. That father, in his treatise IIepe Apyar,interpreting the scripture account metaphorically, makes hell to consist not in eternal punishments, but in the conscience of sinners, the sense of their guilt, and the remembrance of their past pleasures. St. Augustine mentions several of the same opinion in his time; and Calvin, and many of his followers, have embraced it in ours.

The retainers to the contrary opinion, who are much the greatest part of mankind, are divided as to situation, and other circumstances of this horrible scene. The Greeks, after Homer, Hesiod, &c. conceived hell, Toro Teva To The ynv μeyov, &c. a large and dark place under the earth.-Lucian, de Luctu; and Eustathius, on Homer.

Some of the Romans lodged in the subterranean regions directly under the lake Avernus, in Campania, which they were led to from the considera

tion of the poisonous vapours emitted by that lake. Through a dark cave, near this lake, Virgil makes Eneas descend to hell.

Others placed hell under Tenarus, a promontory of Laconia; as being a dark frightful place, beset with thick woods, out of which there was no finding a passage. This way, Ovid says, Orpheus descended to hell. Others fancied the river or fountain of Styx, in Arcadia, the spring-head of hell, by reason the waters thereof were mortal.

But these are all to be considered as only fables of poets; who, according to the genius of their art, allegorizing and personifying every thing, from the certain death met withal in those places, took occasion to represent them as so many gates, or entering-places into the other world.

The primitive Christians conceiving the earth a large extended plain, and the heavens an arch drawn over the same, took hell to be a place in the earth, the farthest distant from the heavens; so that their hell was our antipodes.

Tertullian, De Anima, represents the Christians of his time, as believing hell to be an abyss in the centre of the earth: which opinion was chiefly founded on the belief of Christ's descent into hades, hell, Matt. xii. 40.

Mr. Wiston has lately advanced a new opinion. According to him, the comets are to be conceived as so many hells, appointed in the course of their trajectories, or orbits, alternately to carry the damned into the confines of the sun, there to be scorched by his flames, and then to return them to starve in the cold, dreary, dark regions, beyond the orb of Saturn.