Death And Resurrection Of Osiris.

DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF OSIRIS .

BY JAMES B . GRANT , 32 ° . WE reprint the following article , by Bi-o J . B . Grant , 32 ° , and which appeared in a recent number of the New York Dispatch , describing " a complex figure , copied from the collection of Mountfaucon , and which is

painted on a mummy at the Austinfryar's of La Place des Victories , representing the death ancl resurrection of Osiris , and the beginning , progress , and end of the inundation of the Nile . " "The sign of the Lion is transformed into a couch , upon which Osiris is laid out as dead ; under which are four canopi of various capacities , indicating the state of the Nile at different periodsThe first is terminated bthe head of

. y the dog-star , which gives warning of the approach of the overflow of the river ; the second by the head of a hawk , the symbol of the Etesian wind , which tends to swell the waters ; the third by the head of a heron , the sign of the south wind , which contributes to propel the water into the Mediterranean sea ; and the fourth by that of the Virgin , whicli indicates that when the sun has passed that sign , the inundation would have nearly subsided .

"To the above is superadded a large Anubis , who , with an emphatic gesture , turning toward Isis , who has an empty throne on her head , intimates that the sun , by the aid of the Lion , had cleared the difficult pass of the Tropic of Cancer , and was now iu the sign of the latter , and although in a state of exhaustion , would soon be in a condition to proceed on its way to the south ; at the same time , gives to the husbandman the important warning of retiring to avoid inundation . The empty throne is indicative of its being vacated by the supposed death of Osiris .

' The Egyptians gradually came to a divinity and offered worship to a ruler representing the functions of the sun . Then they completed their absurdity and took Osiris for the first of their kings . Hence we got this odd mixture of three inconsistent notions ; we mean of God , of the sun , and of a dead man , which the Egyptians perpetually confounded together . The cause of their thus confounding them is easily accounted for when the supposed death of Osiris , the the and

sun , god of the Egyptians , is taken into consideration . " We desire our readers to understand that the sun was supposed to be in insurmountable difficulties at both the solstices , which caused as great lamentations as his victories and reappearance at another time did rejoicings . So did Hiram ' s death . What led to these apprehensions when the sun was in the Summer solstice , Orsus or Horus , a famous deity of Egypt , which , as well as Osiris emblem of

, was an the sun . We are informed that tbe Greeks gave the name of Apollo to that of Horns . Hence as Apollo among the Greeks was called the Horus of the Egyptians , both as to his skill in medicine as well as in divinations , he was regarded as the same person , and called by the ancients Horus-Apollo . The allegory of Horus has been thus explained . " The wind Bhamsin makes great in Et in the Sring braising

ravages gyp p y whirlwinds of burning sands , which suffocate travellers , darken the air , and cover the face of the sun so as to leave the earth in perfect obscurity . This circumstance represents the death of Osiris and the reign of Typhon . When the sun a 2-proaches the sign of the Lion , he changes the state of the atmosphere , disperses