OHAP. XIII.] THE FABLE OF PAN INTERPRETED. 105 



because men in this situation live more according to nature 

 than they do in cities and courts, where nature is so corrupted 

 with effeminate arts, that the saying of the poet may be 

 verified : — 



" pars minima est ipsa puella sui."» 



He is likewise particularly styled president of the moun- 

 tains, because in mountains and lofty places the nature of 

 things lies more open and exposed to the eye and the under- 

 standing. 



In his being called the messenger of the gods, next after 

 Mercury, lies a divine allegory ; as, next after the word of 

 God, the image of the world is the herald of the divine 

 power and wisdom, according to the expression of the 

 Psalmist : " The heavens declare the glory of God, and the 

 firmament showeth his handy-work." ° 



Pan is dehghted with the company of the Nymphs : that 

 is, the souls of all living creatures are the delight of the 

 world, and he is properly called their governor, because each of 

 them follows its own nature as a leader, and all dance about 

 their own respective rings with infinite variety and never- 

 ceasing motion. Hence one of the moderns has ingeniously 

 reduced all the power of the soul to motion, noting the pre- 

 cipitancy of some of the ancients, who, fixing their thoughts 

 prematurely on memory, imagination, and reason, have 

 neglected the cogitative faculty, which, however, plays the 

 chief role in the work of conception. For he that remembers, 

 cogitates, as likewise he who fancies or reasons ; so that the 

 soul of man in all her moods dances to the musical airs of the 

 cogitations, which is that rebounding of the Nymphs. And 

 with these continually join the Satyrs and Sileni, that is, 

 youth and age ; for all things have a kind of young, cheerful, 

 and dancing time ; and again their time of slowness, totter- 

 ing, and creeping. And whoever, in a true light, considei*s 

 the motions and endeavours of both these ages, like another 

 Democritus, will perhaps find them as odd and strange as 

 the gesticulations and antic motions of the Satyrs and 

 Sileni. 



The power he had of striking terrors contains a very sen- 

 sible doctrine, for nature has implanted fear in all living 



» Ovid, Rem. Amoris, v, 343, Mart. Epist. • Fsalm xix. 1. 



