We proceed to give a few examples of the manner in which the Authors have explained thefe interefting fubjects. In fpeaking of a Nereid feated on a horfe with a fifh's tail, they take an opportunity to juftify their studies and pursuits.

Men of a phlegmatic difpofition. or of a cenforious temper, never ceafe to rail against thofe delightful fictions with which Homer and Hefiod, and their poetical imitators, have enriched and embellished their works; but, although these fictions did not contain many useful inftructions, and many important truths, would there be any reason to attack and destroy a fystem which peoples and animates nature, and which makes a folemn temple of the vaft univerfe? These flowers, whose varied and thining beauty you fo much admire, are the tears of Aurora. It is the breath of Zephyrus which gently agitates the leaves. The foft murmurs of the waters, are the fighs of the Naïades. A god impels the winds; a god pours out the rivers; grapes are the gift of Bacchus; Ceres prefides over the harvest; or chards are the care of Pomona Does a fhepherd found his reed on the fummit of a mountain, it is Pan who, with his pastoral pipe, returns the amorous lay. When the fportfman's horn roufes the attentive ear, it is Diana armed with her bow and quiver, and more pimble than the ftag that the purfues, who takes the diversion of the

chace.

chace. The Sun is a god, who, riding on a car of fire, diffufes his light through the world; the ftars are fo many divinities, who meafure with their golden beams the regular progrefs of time; the Moon prefides over the filence of the night, and confoles the world for the abfence of her brother. Neptune reigns in the feas, furrounded by the Nereids, who dance to the joyous fhells of the Tritons. In the highest heavens. is feated Jupiter, the master and father of men and gods. Under his feet roll the Thunders, formed by the Cyclops in the caverns of Lemnos; his fmile rejoices Nature, and his nod shakes the foundation of Olympus. Surrounding the throne of their fovereign, the other divinities quaff the nectar from a cup prefented them by the young and beautiful Hebé. In the middle of the bright circle, fhines with diftinguished luftre the unrivalled beauty of Venus, alone adorned with a fplendid girdle, on which the Graces and Sports forever play; and in her hand is a fmiling boy, whofe power is univerfally acknowledged by Earth and Heaven.-Sweet illufions of the fancy pleafing errors of the mind! What objects of pity, thofe cold and infenfible hearts who have never felt your charms! And what objects of indignation, thofe fierce and favage fpirits who would deftroy a world that has fo long been the treafury of the arts; a world, imaginary indeed, but delightful, and whofe ideal pleasures are fo well fitted to compenfate for the real troubles and mifery of the world in which we live."

According to the mythology of the Greeks, Death is reprefented by a Cupid with an inverted torch. Upon this pleafing fymbol of what, to moft men, is a very unpleafing subject, the Authors obferve:

Men fear death, fays Lord Bacon, as children fear darkness. It appears, however, that the ancients could contemplate this melancholy event with a fteady eye and a firm afpect; and whenever they recalled it to their memory, the idea only encouraged them to indulge with more eagerness in pleasures, whofe duration feemed far too short. When they had occafion to mention the last term of life, they never made ufe of the proper expreffion, but employed a variety of circumlocutions. Sleep, Night, Repofe, are equivalent in ancient authors and infcriptions to the inaufpicious term, Death.

Modern artists have not the fame delicacy. Subjected to an abfurd and barbarous cuftom, which owes its origin only to the groffett ignorance, they always reprefent Death by a fkeleton.

The fubject in queftion is an abftract term, which is employed by convention to denote the ceffation of exiflence. If it is permitted to reprefent Death by a fkeleton, we may with equal propriety reprefent Life by a living body; can any thing be more abfurd?

We know that the poets have made an allegorical perfonage of Death; but could fculpture and painting prefent (which is impothble) to the fenfes the fame ideas which poetry prefents to the imagination, is there any thing in the poets to juftify painters and fculptors in reprefenting Death by a heap of bones deprived of the mufcles which ought to cover them? It is in vain that fome artists, in order to dif guife, and partly to conceal, the abfurdity of fuch a picture, infold the skeleton in an ample drapery. The extremities are always feen, and never fail to offend the eyes, and shock the understanding.

Death

Death is nothing; the ancients therefore have never perfonified it; they are fatisfied with expreffing it by fuch images as recal it indirectly to the mind. A Cupid turning downwards a flaming torch; a rofe laid on a tomb; these are the fymbols under which they de lighted to reprefent it; and nothing could be more proper to diminish the melancholy of the subject.'

In fpeaking of a gem on which Cupid is represented in the act of enchaining Plyché, the Authors obferve, that the fable of Cupid and Pfyché is confecrated in a great number of monyments of the finest ages of Greece. Without mentioning the admirable groupe in the gallery of Florence, or the fuperb cameo in the poffeffion of the Duke of Marlborough, we find the friendship and the quarrels of thefe imaginary beings represented on a variety of gems as well as bas-reliefs.

It is remarkable, that before the age of the Antonines, there is not any writer of antiquity, poet, hiftorian, or philofopher, who has thought proper to explain, or even to mention, a fubject which had fo long and fo frequently exercised the genius of artifts. Apuleius is the first author who takes notice of this charming fable; Fulgentius, Bishop of Carthage, fpeaks of it, by his own confeffion, only after what he had learned from Apuleius, although he fays, that a certain Ariftophantes had examined the matter at greater length; but of the work of Ariftophantes we have not any remains.

This extraordinary filence has given rife to a fufpicion, that the fable of Cupid and Psyché was connected with certain myfteries celebrated in honour of the God of Love, in Thefpiæ, a town of Boeotia ; yet Paufanias, in his literary journey through Greece, fays nothing of thefe myfteries that can justify fuch a fufpicion. Befide, if it was allowable to divulge thefe religious fecrets by ftatues and pictures, why should it have been forbidden to reveal them by writing?

However that matter may be, it is certain, that Apuleius has not imagined this fable, as fome Authors have believed, in order to explain the different fyftems of philofophers concerning the human foul. The learned Abbé Gori, and other antiquaries, have imagined that they could explain the emblem as expreffive of the union between the foul and body; but this opinion does not agree with the ftory of Apuleius, in which this union is fuppofed from the beginning, and in which it is faid, that the husband of Pfyché is not a mortal. Other learned men, among whom is the Abbé Banier, pretend that the allegory denotes the power of the paffions over the mind, and the calamities which this power occafions to mankind; but this explanation does not agree with the unravelling of the fable, which ends in the marriage of Cupid and Pfyché, and in the birth of Pleafure, the happy fruit of their union,

It cannot be difputed that Pfyché means the foul. Plutarch tells us, that the word Pfyché denoted a certain species of butterfly; and we read in Kefychius that it fignifies not only the foul, but a fmall winged infect. We find, on an ancient monument, a butterfly com ing out of the mouth of a man juft dead; accompanied by an infcription, published by Gruter: and there is a bas-relief in which Minerva unites a butterfly to the body of a man newly formed. But

although

although it thus evidently appears that the butterfly is an emblem of the foul, how can it be proved, that Love, of which the Greek name Eews, and the Latin name Cupido, equally denote defire, has ever been employed to exprefs the body? In order to difcover the true fense of the fable, we fhall give an abridgement of the ftory of Apuleius, which fully explains the feveral monuments of antiquity relating to this curious fubject.

6

In a certain city, fays Apuleius, lived a King and a Queen, who had three daughters, all beautiful; of the two eldeft, however, the beauty had nothing extraordinary, but the charms of the youngest) exceeded all defcription. Some faid that he was Venus herself, who, quitting Heaven and the Fortunate Islands, had descended to dwell among men; others, that it was a fecond Venus, produced in the bofom of the Earth, as the first had been from the foam of the Sea. There were no more voyages to Paphos, Cnidus, or Cythera; the worship of the goddefs was neglected; her temples were forfaken; her ftatues were no more crowned with garlands; nor did her altars fmoke with victims. Indignant that a fimple mortal fhould ufurp her honours, Venus called her fon, and commanded him to punith the infolent temerity of a virgin, who had abolished her worship, and feduced the admiration of her adorers.

Pfyché, meanwhile, derived no advantage from her beauty. Every one was eager to fee and to admire her; but he could not infpire love into a fingle breaft. Her fitters were already married, while fhe, alone in the retirement of her palace, was tempted to exccrate her charms, which all were ready to praife, but which none defired to enjoy. Afflicted with her melancholy fituation, her parents confulted an Oracle, which ordered them to expofe Pfyché on the fummit of a rock, adorned with her funeral ornaments; that there the fhould find a husband, not indeed of mortal race; but a fierce and ungovernable monfter, that infpired terror into heaven, earth, hell, and Jupiter himself. Her affrightened parents melt in tears, la ment the rigour of deftiny, but obey its voice. The trembling and forfaken Pfyché abandons herself to all the bitterness of woe; when Zephyrus, raifing her with his gentle breath, tranfports her, on his light wings, into a green valley enamelled with flowers. There the fell asleep. As the awoke, what was her aftonishment at finding herfelf in a palace, adorned with the utmost taste and magnificence; and especially, when, without feeing any human form, fhe heard many voices congratulating her on her arrival, and humbly requesting her commands! The whole palace refounds with celeftial mufic; the moft delicate viands and the most exquifite wines are prefented to her by invifible hands; the charms of painting delight her eyes; the breathes a perfumed air; all her fenfes are inchanted with a new, an uncommon, and a continually varying pleasure!

At the approach of night, the beautiful Pfyché yields to the neceffity of repofe. Scarcely was fhe afleep, when a voice more foft and melodious than any that he had yet heard, refounded in her A fecret trouble seizes her; she knows not what the fears, but fhe fears the unknown object more than all other calamities. While a thousand different thoughts torment the fenfibility of her imagina

ears.

tion, her deftined husband arrives, foftly approaches her couch, makes her his wife, and before morning difappears.

• Meanwhile, her unhappy parents are confumed with grief; every day her fifters fhed their tears at the foot of the rock where fhe had been expofed, and filled the neighbouring fields with the name of Pfyché. Their frequent lamentations, repeated by the echoes around, at length came to her ears. Senfibly affected by them, fhe thought of nothing but the means of confoling her unhappy family. The agreeable wonders by which he was furrounded, delighted her fenfes, but could not fatisfy her heart; and the careffes of an unknown hufband could not recompenfe her for the folitude to which the was condemned. She asked his permiffion to fee and embrace her fifters. At first he rejected her requeft, which, he had foreseen, would become fatal; yet her tears and her beauty finally prevailed. But while he granted her defire, he exacted a promife, that if her indifcreet fifters fhould ask who was her husband, the fhould not acquaint them with the injunction he had laid on her, never to fee or know him. Pfyché promifed; and the fame Zephyrus which transported her into that delightful manfion, brought her fifters thither.

After mutual and repeated embraces, Pfyché made them remark the diftinguished beauty of her palace; dazzled with the luftre of which, they asked who was the husband, or rather the god, who had united in one place all the riches of art and nature. Pfyché, faithful to her promife, replied, that it was a handfome youth, whose cheeks were covered with a tender down; but afraid of being betrayed into a more particular conversation, the fent back her fifters, after having made them several valuable prefents. In a few days, however, they returned, with fentiments very different from those which they had at first felt. To the defire of feeing Pfyché, and the joy of having found her, fucceeded all the ftings of envy. Pretending to fhare her felicity, they again asked her the name and condition of the hufband who united fuch power and magnificence; and Pfyché, who had forgot her firft anfwer, defcribed him by circumftances altogether inconfiftent with thofe which he had at firft employed. This mistake convinced them that he had never feen him. They "pitied the cruelty of her fate; wifhed they could conceal the danger that threatened her; but the herfelf knew the terrible refponse of the Oracle." Then they told her, that her husband was a frightful monfter, which had the form of a ferpent; that his venomous breath infected all the country round; and that, fooner or later, fhe would be the victim of his ferocity."

Pfyché, alarmed and trembling, gave way to the perfidious counfels of her fifters, who promifed to bring her a lamp and a dagger, in order to kill the monfter while afleep.

The night meanwhile comes on; and the husband arrives. Pfyché efcapes from his arms, and, with a dagger in one hand and a lamp in the other, advances with a determined refolution to execute her purpose. But, heavens! what was her furprife, when the light, becoming fuddenly more brilliant, difcovered to her Cupid himself, lying in the most delightful attitude. She grows pale, her knees hake, he would have pierced her bofom with the steel, but it had al

ready