To thefe is added his harpè, or long sword, with a particular hook behind it. The defcriptive epithets given by the poets agree with the old figures of it 2.

Mercury had also a general power given him by Jupiter, of conducting fouls to their proper place, and of re-conducting them up again upon occafion. Horace (1. iii. od. 11.) gives an ex traordinary account of Mercury's descending to Orcus, and caufing a ceffation of fufferings there."

In the fame ode Horace fpeaks of Mercury as a wonderful musician, and reprefents him with a lyre, of which he was faid to be the inventor 2.

He

flying back of the drapery, the artists generally mark the motion of a perfon going on swiftly, Ovid. Met. i. v. 529. The poets give him the chlamys as part of his dress, Met, ii. v. 736. Stat. Theb. 7. v. 39..:

z Luc. ix. v. 663.678. (Here fome read luhati for ba mati, not knowing any thing of the hamus, or hook.) Met. iv. v. 665.719. 726...

a Mercury, after stealing fome bulls from Apollo, retired to a cave, at the entrance of which he found a tortoife. He killed it, and diverting himself with the fhell, was pleased with the found it yielded; whereupon cutting thongs out of the hides he had ftolen, he faftened them to the hell, and played upon them. By this legend it appears, that the most ancient lyres were made of the fhell of a tortoise, which is confirmed by the particular Roman lyre, called teftudo. The most remarkable one is in the Montalti g

G 5

gar

deas,

He is likewife defcribed by the poets as the god

of ingenuity and thieving b.

These two characters are joined by Ovid and Horace .

Mercury prefided alfo over the merchants and tradesmen. d This Mercantile Mercury, as the difpenfer of gain, is represented with the attribute of a purfe in his hand, and with his winged cap on his head, which, in the language of the ftatuaries, is as much as to fay, "If you take not gain when offered, it will fly away, and, perhaps, for ever." The poets have

་་

the

dens, which not only fhews the whole belly of the tortoise, and part of what the ftrings were attached to, but has two. horns above like a bull's, with ftrings round their bottoms like thongs. As the tortoife is an amphibious creature, it may be called pifcis,.or fera. This ferves to clear a difficult paffage in Statius,, and another in Horace, Stat. i. Sylv. 5. v. 5. Hor. iv. od. 3. v. 20.. See a riddle on the teftudo being called a beast, a fish, and a harp, in Sympofius.

xix. v. 20.

b Hor, i. od: 10. v. 12. Met. xi. v. 315.

nig..

* Ovid calls him the inventor of the lyre, and the god of thieves, in the fame place, Faft. v. v. 104. So does Horace i. od. 10. v. 6, 7.

From thence he is faid to have his name, Mercurius a Mercibus dictus, Feft. Pomp. b. 1. The Romans called. those who thrived in business, Viri Mercuriales..

In a gem, Mercury is giving up his purfe to Fortune : pa painting (in Mead's collection) he offers it to Minerva,

who

the fame idea of Mercury, and inform us, that it was a common fubject for pictures, as well as other works f.

Mercury, though the patron of robbers, was fuppofed, however, to prefide over the highroads. The ftatues of this Mercury are of that odd terminal shape, fo much in vogue in the best ages of antiquity. Thefe old Termini were fometimes without, but oftner with, bufts, or half figures of fome deity on them; and those of Mercury fo much more frequently than any other, that the Greeks gave them their general name from this god 8.

who takes only a little out of it, as if good luck had more to do with it than good fenfe. In another gem, he offers it to a veiled lady like Pudicitia, who strenuously refuses it.

f Hor. ii. fat. 3. v. 67. Perf. fat. vi. v, 63,

8 Equat is used in Greek for any terminal figures in general. There is an allusion in Juvenal which would strike us more ftrongly, were we used to see these terminalMercuries as commonly as the Romans were of old. The fatire turns upon this affertion, that where there is no virtue, there cannot be any nobility. Virtue among the Romans was,

a man's

exerting himself in the fervice of his country or friends:" fo that the comparing a man to a figure without arms or legs, must give the strongest idea of his being the most useless of mortals. See Sat. viii. v. 1-67.

BOOK

BOOK

II.

The fix HEROES fuppofed by the Romans to have been received into the higher heavens. HERCULES, BACCHUS, ESCULAPIUS, ROMULUS, CASTOR, and POLLUX.

ERCULES was pointed out by the anci

HERCU

I

ent heathens, as their great examplar of virtue. And, indeed, as their idea of virtue confifted chiefly in feeking and undergoing fatigues with patience and fteadiness for the benefit of mankind, they could fcarce have chofen a fitter perfon, the course of whose life was almost wholly

a Our author fays he used to confound thefe with the common heroes fuppofed to have been deified of old, till he obferved that the Roman poets, when fpeaking of men who made the noblest appearance upon earth, and were therefore received into the higher heavens, always instance in fome or other of these fix, Hor. ii. ep. i. v. 17. Id. iii. od. 3. v. 16. Æn. vi. v. 806. and v. 130. (where pauci seems to be the fix) Sil. xv. v. 83. He obferved the fame in the profewriters, Plin. Nat. Hift. vii. c. 26. Cic. de nat. deor. ii. But his chief authority is a quotation by Cicero from the laws of the twelve tables, where thefe fix are named as received into heaven for their merit, and ordered to be worshiped, tab. xi. c. 4. Cic. de leg. 2.

taken