An Account of the remains of the worship of Priapus : lately existing at Isernia, in the kingdom of Naples; in two letters : one from Sir William Hamilton ... to Sir Joseph Banks ... : and the other from a person residing at Isernia : to which is added, A discourse on the worship of Priapus : and its connexion with the mystic theology of the ancients / By R.P. Knight.

Date:: 1786

Credit: An Account of the remains of the worship of Priapus : lately existing at Isernia, in the kingdom of Naples; in two letters : one from Sir William Hamilton ... to Sir Joseph Banks ... : and the other from a person residing at Isernia : to which is added, A discourse on the worship of Priapus : and its connexion with the mystic theology of the ancients / By R.P. Knight. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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r S5 ] amongft its broad leaves, puts forth a flower, in the centre of which is formed the feed-veflel, fhaped like a bell or inverted cone, and punduated on the top with little cavities or cells, in which the feeds grow.* The orifices of thefe cells being too fmall to let the feeds drop out when ripe, they fhoot forth into new plants, in the places where they were formed the bulb of the veflel ferving as a matrice to nourifli them, until they acquire fuch a degree of magnitude as to burft it open, and releafe themfelves; after which, like other aquatic weeds, they take root wherever the current depofits them. This plant therefore, being thus productive of itfelf, and vegetating from its own matrice, without being foftered in the earth, was naturally adopted as the fymbol of the productive power of the waters, upon which the aCtive fpirit of the Creator operated in giving life and vegetation to matter. We accordingly find it employed in every part of the northern he- mifphere, where the Symbolical Religion, improperly called Idolatry, does or-ever did prevail. The facred images of the Tartars, Japonefe, and Indians, are

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