mention. It was what in our public schools is called a holyday without exercise: the boys of course played at something resembling cricket; and the master's presence was not considered to spoil sport. But if by any momentary forgetfulness of the conditions, he brought into the arena an old fellow like himself, the established law was, that he should undergo the discipline he on ordinary occasions inflicted. We have already observed, that Mercury was appointed to the office of conveying the ghosts to the regions below; and that for the reason therein involved, the dying made supplication to him in their last agonies. Valerius Maximus tells a story of a Cean matron, who determined to shorten the miseries of life by a dose of poison. But neither piety nor policy would allow her to approach that undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns, without a solemn petition to Mercury for easy stages, and a comfortable lodging at the end of her journey. Prayers to this effect were sometimes offered to Mercury, and sometimes to other gods; and travelling prayers were always conceived in the same form, whether before a temporary journey to and fro, a permanent change of residence, or a final departure from the world. But the outward-bound were not the only votaries of Mercury. Those who had only accompanied their departing friends to the coast were enlisted as tributary. At Argos, the surviving kindred or acquaintance sacrificed to Apollo, soon after they had put on their new mourning; and at the end of thirty days they performed the same homage to Mercury. The rationality of this proceeding, if there be any in it, is this: they con ceived that the earth received the body, but that Mercury received the soul. The barley of the sacrifice they gave to the minister of Apollo; the meat they took to themselves. Having extinguished the sacrificial fire, which they accounted to be polluted if they turned it to any secular or gastronomical account, they kindled another, over which they broiled their dinner, and devoutly snuffed the fumes as they ascended. But we have advanced thus far without letting the reader into the birth, parentage, and education of our hero. History gives him out to be the son of Jupiter and Maia, which lady was the daughter of Atlas. His office was that of messenger to Jupiter and the other gods. Eloquence was under his immediate patronage. We have already seen that merchants, and of course the profits of trade, were his peculiar care. A whimsical etymology is given for the translation of Hermes into Mercurius: as if the Latin name were a syncopised abbreviation of Medicurrius, medius currebat between gods and men. This surely places him very much in the situation of Francis, in Henry the Fourth: "Anon, anon, Sir!" Mr. Greatorex, the Timotheus of the present day, will know him for the inventor of the lyre and of the harp. Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Moore, Mr. Southey, Mr. Wordsworth, Mr. Hodgson, Mr. Merivale and the late Mr. Bland of anthological renown, will recognise him as the patron mercurialium virorum, of poets and men of genius. The leader of the opera band will hail him as the first practical musician, and the champion of England as the founder of the fancy. But the columns of our newspapers on the morning after St. George's day bear witness, that the public care little about the persons or offices of the courtiers, unless they be made acquainted with their dresses. I therefore give notice to the hatters whom it may concern, that his petasus was a winged cap. I am not sure that the full-dressed hats of the actors on the Théâtre François furnish a correct pattern of the article. He would certainly employ Hoby to furnish his talaria, if winged sandals were still in fashion; and if feet were not likely to accept the Chiltern Hundreds in favour of rail-roads. His caduceus was a wand ; virga, the pedagogue calls it; with two serpents about it. 66 Something too much of this!" As the god of merchants, and an officer to walk before the Lord Chancellor, he bears a purse. Hic petit Euphraten juvenis, domitique Batavi Juvenal. sat. 8. A statue of Hermes was religiously set up against the houses at Athens, of a cubic form, without hands or feet. This was called Herma. The figures here described were merely roughhewn square stones, technically called termes, set upright; but however shapeless the posts, the heads with which they were surmounted were of marble. Hermes also was used as a direction-post. He had no fingers, ours have no heads. The general opinion is, that the Greek name of the god was derived ἀπὸ τοῦ ἑρμηνεύειν, which means to show, or explain; and thence some of his attributes at least, among the rest that of standing by the roadside to direct puzzled wayfarers. But Mr. Gifford is of opinion that this last office has reference to some obscure idea of his being the same deity with the Sun. We may indeed infer that it requires some light to be a direction-post, from the proverb Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius: Every one cannot become a good schoolmaster. I am afraid the proverb will equally apply to the pupils. It is obvious why the tongues of the animals sacrificed were peculiarly devoted to Mercury. His other titles were, Σrpopaños, in which he seems to have been the prototype of our renowned Jonathan Wilde, combining the offices of thief, thieftaker, and gaoler ; Εμπολαῖος, Κερδαῖος, Δόλιος, Ἡγεμόνιος, Εναγώνιος, Διάκονος, Εριούνιος, and in his capacity of gentleman usher to Pluto, Χθόνιος and Καταβάτης, Cum multis aliis, quæ nunc perscribere longum est. ON THE MYTHOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF RHADAMANTHUS. Gnossius hæc Rhadamanthus habet durissima regna; THIS Eneis, vi. 566. HIS distinguished public character in legal biography commenced practice in Crete. He gained considerable reputation by honourable conduct towards his clients, and a trick peculiar to himself, of impartiality in the distribution of justice. The career of honour in those simple and half-civilised days, was exactly the converse of ours: eminent men, instead of rising from the courts below to those above, descended from those above to those below. Rhadamanthus was accordingly promoted to the bench in that place, which in ancient times was not considered to bear a name offensive to polite ears. His Court of King's Bench was composed of three judges; ours of four. Pindar refers to this tribunal in his Olympic : Τὰ δ ̓ ἐν τῇδε Διὸς ἀρχα Αλιρὰ, καλὰ γᾶς δικά ζει τις, ἐχθρᾷ λόγον φράσαις ἀνάγκα. |