238 Gleanings from the 



fire." 1 At all events, it ferved Virgil for an object 

 on which to expend his imagination when it 

 figured on the helmet of Turnus : 



" Cui triplici crinita juba galea alta Chimaeram 

 Suftinet, ^Etnaeos efflantem faucibus ignes ; 

 Tarn magis ilia fremens, et triftibus effera flammis, 

 Quam magis effufo crudefcunt fanguine pugnae." 



And the Laureate was probably indebted to it for 

 the fine imagery of his hero Arthur's helmet which 

 Guinevere faw, 



" Wet with the mifts and fmitten by the lights, 

 The Dragon of the great Pendragonfhip 

 Blaze, making all the night a ftream of fire.'* 



Occafionally the poets, and efpecially the fyf- 

 tematizers of the national theology, from one 

 monfter fabled the birth of others. Thus from 

 Typhoeus and Echidna, Geryon, Orthos, Cerberus 

 and the Hydra were faid to have fprung. 

 Naturally, this principle was capable of indefinite 

 expanfion in the hands of imaginative writers. 

 Natural but unfamiliar objects fupplied the 

 nucleus round which other myths might centre. 

 Thus the aftonifhment of their neighbours when 

 they firft beheld the Theffalians mounted on 

 horfeback led to the formation of thofe fabulous 

 creatures, the Centaurs. The Greeks, it is well 

 known, at the fiege of Troy were unacquainted 

 with the art of riding. Again, the fight and 

 found of a roaring whirlpool, with much broken 

 water and furf, furnifhed the hint for fome fea- 

 fong, which told of Scylla and her fix heads, each 



1 "II.," vi. 179 ; and jEn.," vii. 785. 



