See the conduct of Dapper, &c.]
Of the Egyptian obelisks at Rome I will not strive to give any account,
or even any idea. They are too numerous, too wonderful, too learned for
me to talk about; but I must not forbear to mention the broken thing
which lies down somewhere in a heap of rubbish, and is said to be the
greatest rarity in Rome, column, or _obelisk_ and the greatest antiquity
surely, if 1630 years before the birth of Christ be its date; as that
was but two centuries after the invention of letters by _Memnon_, and
just about the time that Joseph the favourite of Pharaoh died. There is
a sphinx upon it, however, mighty clearly expressed; and some one said,
how strange it was, if the world was no older than we think it, that
they should, in so early a stage of existence, represent, or even
imagine to themselves a compound animal[AG]: though the chimaera came in
play when the world was pretty young too, and the Prophet Isaiah speaks
of centaurs; but that was long after even Hesiod's time.
[Footnote AG: The ornaments of the ark and tabernacle exhibit much
improvement in the arts of engraving, carving, &c. Nor did it seem to
cost Aaron any trouble to make a cast of Apis in the Wilderness for the
Israelites' amusement, 1491 years before Christ; while the dog Anubis
was probably another figure with which Moses was not unacquainted, and
that was certainly composite: a cynopephalus I believe.
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