be visited, even when they stand at the summit of felicity, with images of death, diseases, misfortunes, perfidies of friends, plots of enemies, changes of fortune, and the like; even like those Ethiops in the phial. It is true that Virgil, in describing the battle of Actium, adds elegantly concerning Cleopatra:

Midmost the Queen with sounding timbrel cheers

Her armies to the fight; nor dreams the while

Of those two aspics at her back.

But it was not long before, turn which way she would, whole troops of Ethiops met her eyes.

Lastly, it is wisely added that Nemesis is mounted on a stag: for the stag is a very long lived animal; and it may be that one who is cut off young may give Nemesis the slip; but if his prosperity and greatness endure for any length of time, he is without doubt a subject of Nemesis and carries her as it were on his back.

cules broke off one of the bull's horns: whereupon he, greatly hurt and terrified, to redeem his own horn gave Hercules the horn of Amalthea, or Abundance, in exchange.

The fable alludes to military expeditions. The preparation for war on the part defensive (which is represented by Achelous) is various and multiform. For the form assumed by the invader is one and simple, consisting of an army only, or perhaps a fleet. Whereas a country preparing to receive an enemy on its own ground sets to work in an infinity of ways; fortifies one town, dismantles another, gathers the people from the fields and villages into cities and fortified places ; builds a bridge here, breaks down a bridge there; raises, and distributes, forces and provisions; is busy about rivers, harbours, gorges of hills, woods, and numberless other matters; so that it may be said to try a new shape and put on a new aspect every day; and when at last it is fully fortified and prepared, it represents to the life the form and threatening aspect of a fighting bull. The invader meanwhile is anxious for a battle, and aims chiefly at that; fearing to be left without supplies in an enemy's country; and if he win the battle, and so break as it were the enemy's horn, then he brings it to this: that the enemy, losing heart and reputation, must, in order to recover himself and repair his forces, fall back into his more fortified positions, leaving his cities and lands to the conqueror to be laid waste and pillaged; which is indeed like giving him Amalthea's horn.

XXIV.

DIONYSUS;

OR DESIRE. I

THEY say that Semele, Jupiter's paramour, made him take an inviolable oath to grant her one wish, whatever it might be, and then prayed that he would come to her in the same shape in which he was used to come to Juno. The consequence was that she was scorched to death in his embrace. The infant in her womb was taken by its father and sewed up in his thigh, until the time of gestation should be accomplished. The burden made him limp, and the infant, because while it was carried in his thigh it caused a pain or pricking, received the name of Dionysus. A ter he was brought forth he was sent to Proserpina for Some pics to Burse; but as he grew up his face was so bike a woman's that it seemed doubtful of which wex The wes Moreover be Bed and was buried for a time, and came to be again not long after. In his i wouch, he discovered and gr the quitarof the vine and therewithal the composition and use wema, which had not been known, betry: why sning harvis and Luserious, he subjugmei, tư vấ wugu, uni atramel, z the furthest imits of Ind He was borne II & Zhapur divi by tigers, ant hin, #innal, oæstir intemei, dann railtet Unmai..— Es un phas The Wise akr vimet. his trait.. Tu mud to wit: A Sinding, Whom Thren hat, antimEL pni dositali. 7's strat rew was in 3 w. 3 was

accounted likewise the inventor and founder of sacred rites and ceremonies; yet such as were fanatical and full of corruption, and cruel besides. He had power to excite phrensy. At least it was by women excited to phrensy in his orgies that two illustrious persons, Pentheus and Orpheus, are said to have been torn to pieces; the one having climbed a tree to see what they were doing; the other in the act of striking his lyre. Moreover the actions of this god are often confounded with those of Jupiter.

The fable seems to bear upon morals, and indeed there is nothing better to be found in moral philosophy. Under the person of Bacchus is described the nature of Desire, or passion and perturbation. For the mother of all desire, even the most noxious, is nothing else than the appetite and aspiration for apparent good: and the conception of it is always in some unlawful wish, rashly granted before it has been understood and weighed. But as the passion warms, its mother (that is the nature of good), not able to endure the heat of it, is destroyed and perishes in the flame. Itself while still in embryo remains in the human soul (which is its father and represented by Jupiter), especially in the lower part of the soul, as in the thigh; where it is both nourished and hidden; and where it causes such prickings, pains, and depressions in the mind, that its resolutions and actions labour and limp with it. And even after it has grown strong by indulgence and custom, and breaks forth into acts, it is nevertheless brought up for a time with Proserpina; that is to say, it seeks hiding-places, and keeps itself secret and as it were underground; until casting off all restraints of shame and fear, and growing bold, it either assumes the

mask of some virtue or sets infamy itself at defiance. Most true also it is that every passion of the more vehement kind is as it were of doubtful sex, for it has at once the force of the man and the weakness of the It is notably said too that Bacchus came to life again after death. For the passions seem sometimes to be laid asleep and extinguished; but no trust can be placed in them, no not though they be buried; for give them matter and occasion, they rise up again.

woman.

It is a wise parable too, that of the invention of the Vine; for every passion is ingenious and sagacious in finding out its own stimulants. And there is nothing we know of so potent and effective as wine, in exciting and inflaming perturbations of every kind; being a kind of common fuel to them all. Very elegantly too is Passion represented as the subjugator of provinces, and the undertaker of an endless course of conquest. For at never rests satisfied with what it has, but goes va and on with induite insatiable appetite panting after Ton ale are kept in its stalis and