amongst the ancients, was a large, intricate edifice, cut out into various aisles and meanders running into one another, so as to render it difficult to find a passage through them. Mention is made of several of those edifices amongst the ancients; but the most celebrated were the Egyptian and Cretan labyrinths. That of Egypt, according to Pliny, was the oldest of all the known labyrinths, and subsisted in his time, after having stood three thousand six hundred years. According to him, it was built by King Petesecus, or Titheos; but Herodotus makes it the work of several kings. It consisted of twelve large contiguous palaces, containing three thousand chambers, fifteen hundred of which were under ground. Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny, and Mela, speak of this monument with the same admiration as Herodotus; but not one of them tells us that it was so constructed as to bewilder those who attempted to explore it; although it is manifest that, without a guide, they who entered it would be in danger of losing their way. It was this danger, no doubt, which introduced a new term into the Greek language. The word labyrinth, taken in the literal sense, signifies a circumscribed space, intersected by a number of passages, some of which cross each other in every direction, like those in quarries and mines, whilst others make larger or smaller circuits round the place from which they depart, like the spiral lines we see on certain shells. In the figurative sense, it was applied to obscure and captious questions, to indirect and ambiguous answers, and to those discussions which, after long digressions, bring us back to the point from which we had set out. The Cretan labyrinth is the most famous in history or fable, having been rendered particularly remarkable by the story of the Minotaur, and of Theseus, who found his way through all its windings by means of Ariadne's clue. Diodorus Siculus relates as a conjecture, and Pliny as a certain fact, that Daedalus constructed this labyrinth on the model of that of Egypt, though on a smaller scale. It was formed by the command of Minos, who kept the Minotaur shut up in it; but in their time it no longer existed, having been either destroyed by time, or purposely demolished. Diodorus Siculus and Pliny, therefore, considered this labyrinth as a large edifice; whilst other writers represent it simply as a cavern hollowed in the rock, and full of winding passages. The opinion of Diodorus and Pliny supposes that in their time no traces of the labyrinth existed in Crete, and that even the date of its destruction had been forgotten. Yet it is said to have been visited by the disciples of Apollonius of Tyana, who was contemporary with these authors. At that time, therefore, the Cretans believed that they possessed the labyrinth.