PREFACE. ix

which “ probably typified, by their mythic form, the union
of certain divine attributes, may perhaps be identified with
the god Nisroch, in whose temple Sennacherib was slain by
his sons, after his return from his unsuccessful expedition
against Jerusalem ; the word Nisr signifying in all Semitic
languages an eagle.” The form of this deity was conjec-
tured to be an eagle, long before the discovery of the As-
syrian sculptures. “The winged, human-headed lions were
types, to embody the conception of the wisdom, power,
and ubiquity of the Supreme Being: they could find no
better type of intellect and knowledge than the head of the
man; of strength, than the body of the lion; of ubiquity,
than the wings of a bird. These winged human-headed
lions were not idle creations, the offspring of mere fancy ;
their history was written upon them, they had awed and in-
structed races, three thousand years ago.”

The human-headed and eagle-winged bull evidently
bears some analogy to the Egyptian Sphynx, and is sup-
posed, like the lion, to be typical of the union of physical