Viii INTRODUCTION. 



peculiar god, their minds not being suffi- 

 ciently expanded to conceive a just idea of 

 the Deity,, except, indeed, those master 

 Minds who traced, in the regularity and 

 uniformity displayed in all organised nature, 

 the hand of one supreme Creator, and who 

 adored him under the name of Pan, the 

 universal spirit. 



The worship of Flora amongst the heathen 

 nations may be traced up to very early days. 

 She was an object of religious veneration 

 among the Phocians and the Sabines, long 

 before the foundation of Rome ; and the early 

 Greeks worshipped her under the name of 

 Chloris. The Romans instituted a festival in 

 honour of Flora as early as the time of Ro- 

 mulus, as a kind of rejoicing at the appear- 

 ance of the blossoms, which they welcomed 

 as the harbingers of fruits. The festival 

 games of Floralia were not, however, regu- 

 larly instituted until five hundred and sixteen 

 years after the foundation of Rome, when, on 

 consulting the celebrated books of the Sibyl, 

 it^ was ordained that the feast should be 

 annually kept on the 28th day of April, that 



