Reprint Of Scarce, Or Curious, Books On Freemasonry. "The Life Of Sethos."

But it was not so with respect to kings ; for , if they did not make any particular disposition to the contrary , they were all , in whichever dynasty they reigned , conveyed to the labyrinth situate in the middle of the lake Moeris , on the borders of Libya . This edifice , which in magnificence , surpassed all ^ tho labours of Greece put together , even according to the testimony of the Greeks themselves , was not built , as Herodotus imagined , the twelve

by kings who reigned at one and the same time , after the retreat of Sabacon the Ethiopian , for he did not make himself master of Egypt till two or three hundred years before the invasion of Cambysos ; whereas this labyrinth was by far more ancient than Sesostris himself , and was erected when Egypt was only divided into twelve provinces . The kings of the four dynastiesbeing all at had all contributed to this memorable workof

, peace , , which the upper part was dedicated to the snn and the subterranean to the infernal deities . And this it was occasioned Homer ' s * calling the entrance into hell the gates of the sun . The twelve immense palaces which it contained represented , according to their design , all Egj-pt ; and for that reason they marked out their several sepulchres , for them and their successors ^ in the subterranean vaults . But the imaginations of the people—added to the

ceremonies performed by the priests before they admitted a corpse into these gloomy mansions , where few of the living had ever entered—gave occasion to a great deal of fiction . It was an article of reli gion to believe that the innumerable windings—with which they were told , and with truth , that these subterranean passages abounded—conducted their good kings to deli ghtful regions , but that tyrants were forbidden even an entrance into the labyrinth . The manner of these ceremonies was this . When the corpse was brought to the bank of a lake called Charonover which the passage

, lay to the gate of the infernal deities , it was there stopped hy an incorruptible tribunal , composed of sixteen priests of the labyrinth , with their chief , and two judges chosen out of each of the twelve ancient nomes . The hi gh priest , who conducted the deceased king , having there made an harangue , the president of the tribunal gave leave to all the assistants to lay such charges against the deceased as they could prove . They then proceeded to judgmentbwhich the was either sentenced to be

de-, y corpse livered to their ferryman , whom they called Charon , or to be deprived of sepulture . _ This sentence passed by scrutiny , that is , by certain tickets , which the judges threw into that terrible urn , the very idea of which was powerful enough to keep the ancient kings within the bounds of justice . To conclude . To whatever sepulchre the corpse of kings , or even of private persons , were carried , they were liable * to an examination before

judges , who were always men of the greatest reiratation and probity . They were only eligible out of those who were initiated ; and , if for a private person , they were upon every occasion chosen by men taken out of each class of the freemen of a city , or of the subjects of the kingdom when for a sovereign . And the tickets in which the . names of the judges were written were opened and numbered in public view . But for ' those

] rings _ who were to bo interred in the labyrinth , all Egypt , according to the division of the twelve ancient nomes , had their suffrage in the election of the judges . And besides , at this labyrinth alone was performed that great number of other ceremonies from whence Orpheus the poet , whom we shall soon see in Egypt , and who , being present at the obsequies of another king , borrowed thence the greater part of that description of hell which he has _ given us in his verses , and which was afterwards copied by Homer in Greek , and l : w Yirgil in Latin .