622 Fabulous Animals. 



creatures. Satyrs and Fauns are represented as men witn 

 goats' legs and horns, and were supposed to be the 

 attendants of Bacchus, with whose worship they are ge- 

 nerally connected. The idea of such beings was probably 

 derived from some of the larger species of apes. They 

 are described as inhabiting woods and forests, of which 

 they were regarded as the protecting deities. Probably 

 they were partly personifications, intended to express the 

 debasing influence of animal propensities and sensual 

 indulgence ; and as nothing tends more than intoxication 

 to reduce man to a level with the brutes, since it de- 

 prives reason of all control over the passions, the form 

 of the Satyr may have been ingeniously intended as a 

 visible representation of the degraded state of those who 

 surrender up the noblest prerogative of man. Whether 

 such was really or not the idea of those who first 

 feigned the existence of such creatures, we may very 

 rationally adopt this explanation, and thereby deduce an 

 important moral lesson from what is in itself an extrava- 

 gant fiction. 



