Ancieiit Epic Poem. 129 



desGcnd to ? Can these excite one noble passion } 

 Tis not the will of the implacable Juno, 

 though next^in rank to the sovereign of heaven, 

 which can *>^ise the bosom of the yielding 

 ocean, and threaten the destruction of the 

 hated /Eneas and his fleet, but her majesty- 

 must supplicate the aid of a savage god in some 

 wild region, who has the winds imprisoned in 

 a cave, and shd debauches him from his* duty 

 by tlic promise of a beautiful mistress. How 

 ridiculous is the personification of these winds, 

 who, from the volume of their lungs, can emit 

 a power, sufficient to convulse all nature. — 

 ITie Icelandic Edda would be disgraced by 

 such a deification, nor is the idea of a Lap- 

 land witch imprisoning a storm in a leathern 

 bag more contemptible. Cotton has done 

 them no injustice in his ludicrous exhibition of 

 their modus operandi. What a rabble of gods 

 and goddesses is exhibited to our view among 

 the Dii Minores of the heathen mythology 1 

 How low in their characters ! How mean in 

 their functions ! Yet they all have a supposed 

 being and ministration, and all- occasionally 

 have their parts assigned to them in the 

 Epopoea of the ancients. The Satyrs of the 

 Woods, with their shaggy bodies, and their 

 lustful propensities, the worthy attendants of 

 the drunken Bacchus ; the god Pivn whh his 



