bead, in which many images of deer were engraven. She had also a wheel, which denoted her swiftness when she avengès.

QUESTIONS FOR EXAMINATION.

Who are the goddesses that are consulting together on important business?

Who was Themis; and what was her business; and why were her images placed before public speakers?

Who were the children of the other Themis ?

Why was Themis styled modest by Hesiod; and Carmenta by Eusebius?

Why was a temple erected in honour of Carmenta?

THE GODS OF THE WOODS, AND THE RURAL GODS. PAN. HIS NAMES, DESCENT, ACTIONS, &c.

We are now come to the images of the gods and goddesses of the woods. Here you may see the gods Pan, Silvanus, the Fauni, the Satyri, Silenus, Priapus, Aristæus, and Terminus.

And there you see the goddesses, Diana, Pales, Flora, Feronia, Pomona, and an innumerable company of Nymphs.

Pan is called by that name, either, as some tell us, because he exhilarated the minds of all the gods with the music of the pipe, which he invented; and by the harmony of the cithern, upon which he played skilfully as soon as he was born. Or, perhaps, he is called Pan, because he governs the affairs of

the universal world by his mind, as he represents it by his body.

The Latins called him Inuus and Incubus, the "nightmare ;" and at Rome he was worshipped, and called Lupercus and Lyceus. To his honour a temple was built at the foot of the Palatine hill, and festivals called Lupercalia were instituted, in which his priests, the Luperci, ran about the streets naked.

His descent is uncertain, but the common opinion is, that he was born of Mercury and Penelope. For when Mercury fell violently in love with her, and tried in vain to move her, at last, by changing himself into a white goat, succeeded. Pan, after he was born, was wrapt up in the skin of a hare, and carried to heaven.

He is represented as a horned half goat, that resembles a beast rather than a man, much less a god. He has a smiling, ruddy face, his nose is flat, his beard comes down to his breast, his skin is spotted, and he has the tail, legs, and feet of a goat; his head is crowned or girt about with pine, and he holds a crooked staff in one hand, and in the other a pipe of uneven reeds, with the music of which he can cheer even the gods themselves.

When the Gauls, under Brennus, their leader, made an irruption into Greece, and were just about to plunder the city Delphi, Pan, so terrific in appearance, alarmed them to such a degree, that they all betook themselves to flight, though nobody pursued them. Whence we proverbially say, that men are in panic fear, when we see them affrighted with

out a cause.

Now hear what the image of Pan signifies. Pan is a symbol of the world. In his upper part he resembles a man, in his lower part a beast; because the superior and celestial part of the world is beautiful, radiant, and glorious: as is the face of this

god, whose horns resemble the rays of the sun, and the horns of the moon: the redness of his face is like the splendour of the sky; and the spotted skin that he wears, is an image of the starry firmament. In his lower parts he is shagged and deformed, which represents the shrubs and wild beasts, and the trees of the earth below: his goats' feet signify the solidity of the earth; and his pipe of seven reeds, that celestial harmony which is made by the seven planets. He has a sheep-hook, crooked at the top, in his hand, which signifies the turning of the year into itself.

The nymphs dance to the music of the pipe; which instrument Pan first invented. You will wonder when you hear the relation which the poets give to this pipe, namely, as oft as Pan blows it, the dugs of the sheep are filled with milk: for he is the god of the shepherds and hunters, the captain of the nymphs, the president of the mountains and of a country life, and the guardian of the flocks that graze upon the mountains:

"Pan curat oves, oviumque magistros."

Virg. Ecl. 2.74

Pan loves the shepherds, and their flocks he feeds.

He

The nymph Echo fell in love with him, and brought him a daughter named Iringes, who gave Medea the medicines with which he charmed Jason. could not but please Dryope, to gain whom, he laid aside his divinity and became a shepherd. But he did not court the nymph Syrinx with so much success for she ran away to avoid her lover; till coming to a river (where her flight was stopped,) she prayed the Naiades, the nymphs of the waters, because she could not escape her pursuer, to change her into a bundle of reeds, just as Pan was laying hold of her, who therefore caught the reeds in his