The owl is not accounted a sagacious bird but his faculty of seeing in darkness, when others can not see, represents the vigilance of Ascalaphus, who watched Proserpine when he was not himself observed. It is suitable to wisdom, which discerns where the careless are blind, to take such a bird as her emblem.

Who was Proserpine, and how did she employ herself?
Who carried off Proserpine to the infernal regions?
What did one of her companions exclaim?

What happened on the descent of Pluto and Proserpine?
What did Ceres when she lost her daughter?

Of whom did Ceres entreat relief?

Was Proserpine restored to earth?

Did Ceres offer a second petition to Jupiter, and what is represented by this part of the fable of Proserpine?

What became of Ascalaphus?

Is the owl a proper attendant of Minerva ?

VENUS AND CUPID.

The froth-born Venus, ravishing to sight,
Rose from the ample sea to upper light,
And on her head the flower of summer swelled,
And blushed all lovely, and like Eden smelled.
A garland of the rose; and a white pair
Of doves about her flickered in the air;
There her son Cupid stood before her feet,
Two wings upon his shoulders, fair and fleet;
And blind as night, as he is often seen,
A bow he bare, and arrows bright and keen.
No goddess she, commissioned to the field,
Like Pallas, dreadful with her sable shield,
Or fierce Bellona thundering at the wall,
While flames ascend, and mighty ruins fall.
To the soft Cyprian shores she graceful moves,
To visit Paphos and her blooming groves;
While to her power a hundred altars rise,
And grateful incense meets the balmy skies.

VENUS..

69

VENUS.

See plate, page 65.

VENUS was the personification of female beauty The poets represented her as having sprung from the foam of the sea. She first appeared upon the Burface of the waves in a sea-shell, and was gently wafted to the foot of mount Cythera, and when she set her feet upon the land, flowers sprung up beneath them. The rosy Hours, who were intrusted with her education, received her, and conducted her to heaven.

The Romans sometimes called Venus, Cythera, from the island to which she was borne, and sometimes she was called Dione. Her favourite residence was in the island of Cyprus, where she was worshipped at the city of Paphos. Venus, from her vivacity and happy disposition, is often styled the laughter-loving goddess. That she was intrusted to the Hours and conveyed by them to heaven, only signifies that she passed her time happily :

Young Dione, nursed beneath the waves,

And rocked by Nereids in their coral caves,
Charmed the blue sisterhood with playful wiles,
Lisped her sweet tones, and tried her tender smiles.
Then, on her beryl throne, by Tritons borne,
Bright rose the goddess like the star of morn.
With rosy fingers, as uncurled they hung
Round her fair brow, her golden locks she wrung;
O'er the smooth surge in silver sandals stood,
And looked enchantment on the dazzled flood.
The bright drops rolling from her lifted arms,

In slow meanders wander o'er her charms,
See round her snowy neck their lucid track,
Pearl her white shoulders, gem her ivory back,

The Nereids were represented in the mythology to have blue hair. "blue-haired deites." See Comus.

Milton says,

Round her fine waist and swelling bosom swim,
And star with glittering brine each crystal limb.
-And beauty blazed to heaven and earth unveiled.
Botanic Garden.

She is often represented in her sea-shell sporting upon the ocean, the sea-nymphs, called Nereides, and dolphins, and Cupids, surrounding her. When she ascended to heaven her chariot was drawn by doves and swans, accompanied by Cupid and the Graces. She guided her doves by a golden chain She was clothed in slight and graceful apparel, bound round the waist by a girdle called the cestus. The cestus was supposed to make Venus a thousand times more graceful and beautiful than she was with out it.

The temples of Venus were numerous in the heathen world; those of Paphos, Cythera, and Idalia were the most celebrated. In some places incense only was offered to this goddess. The dove and the swan, the rose and the myrtle, the most graceful of birds, and the sweetest and most odorous of plants, were sacred to Venus.

In ancient times the Greeks regarded fine hair as the greatest natural ornament of the female sex. The ladies preserved their hair carefully, and arranged it in a very tasteful and becoming manner; they often consecrated it to Venus.

Some instances are related of beautiful ladies who had grown old, and no longer could take pleasure in the reflection of their own faces, who would send the mirror they had been accustomed to use, and hang it up in the temple of Venus, as if they had said, Time has robbed me of my beauty; I only see in this mirror that I am no longer young; I will bestow it upon her whose beauty never fades, and whose youth is immortal.

ADONIS was a beautiful youth, and beloved by Venus. His favourite occupation was hunting Venus often cautioned him against exposing his life to the violence of wild beasts, but he did not attend to her counsels, and died of the wound which a wild boar whom he pursued gave him.

Venus mourned him excessively, and transformed him to the flower called Anemone, or wind-flower Proserpine offered to restore him to life if he would spend half the year with her in the infernal regions. This fable has the same meaning with that of Proserpine herself. Proserpine spent half the year with her mother on earth, and the other half with Pluto In hell. These allegories signify that the seeds and roots of plants are interred beneath the soil in winer, and rise to the light and adorn the earth in

summer.

The feasts of Adonis were celebrated in Greece and Syria. They commenced with mourning for is death, and concluded with expressions of joy for their renovation. The Syrians called Adonis, Thammuz. The prophet Ezekiel reproves the dolatrous women for weeping for Thanmuz; that is, for joining in the funeral procession with which the Syrians celebrated his memory,

On Lebanon's sequestered height

The fair Adonis left the realms of light,
Bowed his bright locks, and, fated from his birth
To change eternal, mingled with the earth;
With darker horror shook the conscious wood,
Groaned the sad gales, and rivers blushed with blood.
And Beauty's goddess bending o'er his bier,
Breathed the soft sigh, and poured the tender tear.
Admiring Proserpine, through dusky glades,
Led the fair phantom to Elysian shades,
Clad with new form, with finer sense combined,
And fit with purer flame the ethereal mind.

When winter ends and spring serenely shines,
Then fat the lambs, then mellow are the wines:
Then sweet are slumbers on the flowery ground;
Then wit.. thick shades are lofty mountains crowned.
Let all the hinds bend low at Ceres' shrine;

Mix honey sweet, for her, with milk and mellow wine.
Thrice lead the victim the new fruits around,

And Ceres call, and choral hymns resound.
Presume not, swains, the ripened grain to reap,
Till crowned with oak in antic dance you leap,
Invoking Ceres; and in solemn lays,

Exalt your rural queen's immortal praise.-Pitt's Virgil.

The worship of Ceres was universal among those who received the religion of Greece. The most solemn ceremonial of that religion was the festival of Ceres, celebrated at Eleusis, a town in Attica, and particularly honoured by the Athenians. These solemnities were called the Eleusinian Mysteries. The word mysteries signifies something not commonly known. The Mysteries of Eleusis seems to have been an institution resembling modern Masonry, in the particular of secrecy at least. Initiated persons-that is, those who were admitted to be present at the ceremonies at Eleusis, were strictly forbidden to divulge what they saw there.

Persons of both sexes were admitted by the high priest, called the Hierophant, to the mysteries of Eleusis. It was pretended that those who enjoyed this privilege were under the immediate protection of the goddess, and not only in this life, but after death. Those who broke the vow to conceal what they were instructed in, in these mysteries, were accounted execrable.

Execration was a sentence which forbade all people to dwell in the same house, to enter the same ship, to drink from the same vessel, to buy and sell, or to converse with the person considered sacrilegious. The sentence of execration permitted any