228 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 



<s deity, which they fprinkle with oil, and adorn every 

 " day with flowers : they fet up his figure in all their 

 " temples, in the Itreets, in the high roads, and in open 

 ec plains at the foot of fome tree; fo that perfons of all 

 66 ranks may invoke him, before they undertake any 

 " bufinefs; and travellers worfhip him, before they pro- 

 " ceed on their journey." To this I may add, from my 

 own obfervation, that in the commodious and ufeful 

 town which now rifes at Dharmdranya or Gay a, under 

 the aufpices of the a6tive and benevolent Thomas Law, 

 Elq. collector of Rotas, every new-built houfe, agree- 

 ably to an immemorial ufage of the Hindus, has the 

 name of Ganefa fuperfcribed on its door; and in the 

 old town, his image is placed over the gates of the 

 temples. 



We come now to Saturn, the oldeft of the Pagan 

 Gods, of whole office and actions much is recorded. 

 The jargon of his being the fon of Earth and Heaven, 

 who was the fon of the .Sky and the Day, is purely a 

 confeflion of ignorance who were his parents, or who 

 his predeceffors ; and there appears more fenfe in the 

 tradition laid to be mentioned by the inquifitive and 

 well-informed Plato, " that both Saturn, or Time, and 

 " his confort Cybele, or the Earth, together with their 

 " attendants, were the children of Ocean and Thetis ; 

 u or, in lefs poetical language, fp rang from the waters of 

 " the great deep." Ceres, the goddefs of harvefts, was, 

 it fcems, their daughter; and Virgil defcribes "the 

 " mother and nurfe of all as crowned with turrets, in 

 ''" a car drawn by lions, and exulting in her hundred 

 " grandfons, all divine, all inhabiting fplendid celef- 

 " tial manfions." As the God of Time, or rather as 

 Time itfelf perfonihed, Saturn was ufually painted by 

 the heathens holding a fcythe in one hand, and, in the 

 other, a fnake with its tail in its mouth, the fymbol of 

 perpetual cycles and revolutions of ages : he was often 



reprcfented 



