The Centaur The Satyr. 621 



to fly up to heaven ; but Pegasus threw his lider, and 

 flying up to heaven without him, was changed into the 

 constellation of stars which still bears his name. Pegasus 

 is sometimes confounded with the Hippogriph, or Ippo- 

 grifo of Ariosto, which is often seen in coats of arms. 



THE CENTAUK. 



LIKE the Sphinx, this creature is a compound of the 

 brute and human form, exhibiting the body of a man 

 united to that of ahorse, the former rising from the chest 

 of the latter. Absurd as such a combination must appear 

 to the anatomist, and ill adapted as it seems for agility, 

 it is not wholly devoid of grace, and is very frequently 

 met with in antique sculpture. According to Grecian 

 mythology, these beings inhabited Thessaly ; and poetry 

 has celebrated their combats with Hercules, Theseus, 

 and Pirithous, the latter of whom was the leader of the 

 Lapithse, a people who vanquished the Centaurs. Their 

 fabulous existence had its origin in that love of the mar- 

 vellous, which is always found to exist in the earlier 

 stages of society. Hence the natives of Thessaly being 

 distinguished for their skill in horsemanship, at a time 

 when their neighbours were unacquainted with the art of 

 riding, they would be described as combining the powers 

 both of the human and the equine race ; in the same 

 manner as some of the American tribes, when they first 

 beheld the Spaniards mounted on horses, mistook them 

 for a different race of beings from themselves, supposing 

 them to be half men and half quadrupeds. It is by such 

 errors that fiction, whether poetry or painting be its 

 vehicle, creates those fanciful beings and shapes which 

 delight the imagination. 



THE SATYR. 



ALTHOUGH the Satyr of the ancient poets can hardly be 

 termed an animal, as the human form predominates, he 

 may be introduced here as our final example of fabulous 



