143 



In conclusion, Mr. Evans urged the importance of public attention 

 being directed to the subject of the adulteration of food, and considered 

 that a great boon would be conferred on the community, by the establish- 

 ment in large towns of efficient examiners of food, with full power to 

 condemn adulterated or spurious articles. 



FOURTH MEETING. 



Royal Institution. — November 29, 1852. 



JOSEPH DICKINSON, M.D., F.L.S., &c.. President, m the chair. 



At an Extraordinary Meeting held this evening, the resolution 

 passed at the last meeting, viz., "That Visitors be admitted at the 

 commencement of the Meeting," was read and confirmed, agreeably to 

 the 46th Law. 



Mr. John Brewer, the Rev. A. Fischel, and Mr. Wm. Lassell, 

 Jun., were elected Ordinary Members. 



The following paper was read by William Ihne, Ph.D., &c., — 



ON THE TRUE MYTHOLOGICAL CONCEPTION OF JANUS, 

 HIS ATTRIBUTES AND WORSHIP. 



By their wily policy, and by the irresistible strength of their legions, 

 the Romans subdued Greece, enfeebled by her political divisions. But 

 the martial conquerors, whilst imposing upon Hellas a political yoke, 

 acknowledged the intellectual superiority of their subjects, and became, 

 in their turn, subject to the nobler dominion of the Hellenic mind. All 

 mental culture of indigenous Italian growth, like the wild forest tree, 

 served only to receive the more generous Hellenic graft. Hence Roman 

 art and Hterature are, in reality, Greek art and Greek literature trans- 

 planted to the less genial soil of Italy. 



Nor was it native art and Hterature only which gave way to the Hel- 

 lenic influence. Something far dearer to the national feeling was 

 overlaid and almost stifled by similar importations from abroad. It was 

 the old national religion that gave way by degrees and vanished into 

 oblivion, whilst the brilliant reign of the Greek Olympus was established 



