in Fabulous History, a celebrated river of hell, round which it flows nine times. The gods held the waters of the Styx in such veneration, that to swear by them was reckoned an oath altogether inviolable. If any of the gods had perjured themselves, Jupiter obliged them to drink the waters of the Styx, which lulled them for one whole year into a senseless stupidity, for the nine following years they were deprived of the ambrosia and the nectar of the gods, and after the expiration of the years of their punishment, they were restored to the assembly of the deities, and to all their original privileges. It is said that this veneration was shown to the Styx, because it received its name from the nymph Styx, who with her three daughters assisted Jupiter in his war against the Titans.

Styx was a river which it was necessary for departed shades to pass before they could enter the infernal regions; and it was the office of Charon to ferry them over in a boat which was kept for that purpose. The ghosts of those who had not been honoured with the rites of sepulture were obliged to wander an hundred years before Charon could admit them into his boat to convey them before the judges of Hades. What could have given rise to this fable of Charon and his boat, it is not very material to inquire. Mythological writers have said, that the Greeks learned it from the Egyptians, which is indeed probable enough; that the Egyptians framed both this, and some other fables relating to the dead, from certain customs peculiar to their country; that in particular there was, not far from Memphis, a famous burying-place, to which the dead bodies were conveyed in a boat across the lake Acherusia; and that Charon was a boatman who had long officiated in that service. The learned Dr Blackwell says, in his life of Homer, that, in the old Egyptian language, Charoni signified "ferryman."