122 On the Machinery of the 



lust to be the farther victims of the relentless 

 jealousy of his offended queen. On the story 

 of Clitoris, whom he violates in the shape of 

 an ant, Vossius very gravely remarks, that 

 thereby the ancients meant to inculcate, 

 '' Quod ingentia plerumque a minimis mala 

 orluntur." What does not the heathen my- 

 thology ow^e to the ingenuity of some christian 

 moralists ? The halter is not, indeed, a " dignus 

 divino vindice nodus,'' but unprotected by 

 supernatuTal pov^^er, this in our days would 

 assuredly terminate the career of such a liber- 

 tine on earth. There is, in a passage of 

 Terence, a striking attestation to the }>ernicious 

 influence, which the character of the supreme 

 Jove must have upon the moral mind. A 

 young debauchee justifies his conduct by the 

 plea of Jupiter's example. Terence wrote in 

 the purer days of the Roman Republic, and 

 that in these days a Roman audience could 

 bear such an appeal^ in behalf of licentious 

 amour, is a strong proof, that the reflection was 

 not singular, but that it was familiar perhaps 

 to every one, who received this immoral deity 

 as the supreme object of his worship. With 

 this character for licentious ^mour and unre- 

 strained lust^ Jupiter is acknowledged in the 

 epic poem of the ancients. And such as the 



