Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 229 



the like, common in Oriental art, are but ex- 

 aggerations of forms familiar to Eaftern tribes 

 from their infancy. In claffical literature, the 

 genius of the two nations delighted to exercife 

 itfelf in the production of grotefque monfters, 

 which fancy frequently inverted with ftriking 

 attributes; and the poets, embalming thefe con- 

 ceptions in their verfe, handed them on to 

 numerous generations of writers and ftudents of 

 ancient Greece and Rome. Wordfworth has well 

 pointed out that the natural features of Greece, 

 when pafTed through the alembic of poetic fancy, 

 at once refulted in many a beautiful, many a 

 monftrous brood of fupernatural creations : 



" The Zephyrs fanning, as they patted, their wings, 

 Lacked not for love fair objefts whom they wooed 

 With gentle whifper. Withered boughs grotefque, 

 Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age, 

 From depth of maggy covert peeping forth 

 Jn the low vale, or on fteep mountain-fide ; 

 And, fometimes, intermixed with ftirring horns 

 Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard, 

 Thefe were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood 

 Of gamefome deities ; or Pan himfelf, 

 The fun pie fhepherd's awe-infpiring god." 1 



Befides the richnefs of native fancy, a large 

 infufion of Oriental beliefs coloured Greek myth- 

 ology. It is exceedingly difficult to eftimate the 

 amount and value of thefe importations. Save in 

 the " Odyfley," Homer is comparatively free from 

 them. There he feems intentionally to have 

 dowered his verfe with much of the richnefs and 

 many of the fantaftic character iftics of the Eaft. 



1 See "The Excurfion," pp. 134-139. 



