in fabulous history, a monster which had the head and breasts of a woman, the body of a dog, the tail of a serpent, the wings of a bird, the paws of a lion, and a human voice. This creature is variously represented in Greek mythology. It sprang from the union of Orthos with the Chimera, or of Typhon with Echidna, or of Typhon with the Chimera. The Sphinx had been sent into the neighbourhood of Thebes by Juno, who wished to punish the family of Cadmus, which she persecuted with immortal hatred; and it laid this part of Boeotia under continual alarms, by proposing enigmas, and devouring the inhabitants, if unable to explain them. In the midst of their consternation, the Thebans were told by the oracle that the sphinx would destroy herself as soon as one of the enigmas which she proposed was explained. In this enigma she wished to know what animal walked on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening. Creon, king of Thebes, promised his crown and his sister Jocasta in marriage to him who could deliver his country from the monster by a successful explanation of the enigma. It was at last happily explained by Oedipus, who observed, that man walked on his hands and feet when young, or in the morning of life; at the noon of life he walked erect; and, in the evening of his days, he supported himself by leaning on a staff. The sphinx no sooner heard this explanation than she dashed her head against a rock, and immediately expired. Some mythologists wish to unriddle the fabulous traditions about the sphinx by the supposition, that one of the daughters of Cadmus, or Laius, infested the country of Thebes by her continual depredations, because she had been refused a part of her father's possessions. The lion's paw expressed, as they observe, her cruelty, the body of the dog her lasciviousness, her enigmas the snares which she laid for strangers and travellers, and her wings the despatch which she used in her expeditions. The legend of the sphinx is supposed to have been introduced from Egypt or Ethiopia. Among the Egyptians the sphinx was the symbol of religion, by reason of the obscurity of its mysteries; and on the same account the Romans placed a sphinx in the *pronao* or porch of their temples.