disgustingly red. In one hand he held a cup, in the other a thyrsis twisted with ivy. A magpie was placed near him, to hint that drunkenness is always a babbler. The first priests of Bacchus were Satyrs; his first priestesses Naiads. In process of time, however, the Naiads were displaced by the Bacchantes, the Thyades, and the Menades; these different names draw their origin from several words expressive of rage, folly, and madness. The priestesses ran through the fields and the cities armed with the thyrsis, crowned with vine-branches, and dressed in the skins of tigers; their hair was dishevelled, their mouths foaming, their eyes red and sparkling Some authors have vaunted their charms; perhaps with reason; but I confess they would never have me for a rival. Without virtue I see nothing attractive; in my eyes even ugliness is embellished by decency: surely there is no true beauty but in that face where modesty visibly reigns.

No sooner did the season arrive in which the feasts of Bacchus were celebrated, than they decorated his temples with vine and ivy. The priests led his statue in triumph under moving groves of vines, while the air resounded with hymns to his honor. The Bacchantes followed, mingling dances and shouts together, both of which were more closely allied to the frantic merriment of madness than the transports of innocent delight. It was usual for this procession to rest under the shade of an oak or a fig-tree. There they placed the god upon an altar, and immolated a he-goat at his feet. This sacrifice was peculiarly acceptable to Bacchus, as in browsing upon the young shoots and earliest buds of the vine, this animal destroys the hopes of the vintage. The priests then bore the victim and the god in triumph as they went along the inhabitants of the country through which they passed sacrificed a hog before the gates of their houses. In returning from the temple the sacrificers burned the entrails of the victim, and with the remainder of the flesh prepared a feast for the assembly.

Amongst the Athenians it was customary for virgins, coyered with long veils but otherwise naked, to present Bacchus

with baskets full of the first fruits of the season. After the offering the priests collected at the sound of the fife and the tamborine, and jumped in regular time over and upon swelled bladders, well covered with fat or oil. You may suppose, my Emilia, that the dancers were often out in their measure, and that false steps were not unfrequent. The fall of each figurant was hailed by the spectators with hisses and clapping of hands; while a prize was decreed to the person who, in vaulting over the slippery obstacles, had best preserved his equilibrium.

These fantastic games passed from Athens to Rome, where the principal feasts of Bacchus were celebrated during three different periods of the year. The first feast took place in August; small figures of the god were then suspended to the branches of such trees as shaded the vineyard, in order to give protection to the grape. The second feast was held in the month of January, when the wines of Italy were carried into Rome. The third, and the most solemn, happened in February; it was called the Bacchanalia, and was exactly held at the same time, and observed with the same extravagance, as we do our carnival. Many learned men have asserted that Bacchus was the Nimrod of the scriptures, he who was termed in holy writ the mighty hunter. They found this hypothesis upon the resemblance which is discoverable in the Greek and Hebrew between the names and sirnames of Bacchus and of Nimrod. I think one should not too readily credit this scientific opinion, nor infer the identity of persons from the similarity of their names. I know many Emilias, like you young and lovely; it is your name they have, almost your features, but where are your virtues? is it you in truth? Ah, no! Other curious scholars have established a comparison between Bacchus and Moses, which is suficiently plausi. ble to give the idea some authority. Bacchus and Moses were each educated in Orobire; both the one and the other were conquerors, legislators, and benefactors of the people. they conquered. Bacchus is represented with two horns; Moses with two rays issuing from his head. With his thyr

sis Bacchus caused fountains of wine to flow; the rod of Moses called forth a spring of the purest water-the comparison halts in this instance solely in the quality of the liquids. In short, Bacchus having struck with his thyrsis the waters of the Orontes and the Hydaspus, traversed these rivers with unwetted feet; Moses did the same by the Red Sea. These resembling features prove this, at least, that if Moses and Bacchus are not the same man, they were two men of the same character. Orpheus called Bacchus Moses, Mosem, Moïse, and gave him for attributes ten tables of laws. The names of great men may often belong to the unworthy, but their characters and their actions belong solely to themselves; and it is by these marks alone that virtue is recognized. Adieu. To-morrow I will fulfil my former promise, and speak to you of the birth of the Graces.

LETTER XXXVI.

Though some disagree in their accounts of the genealogy of the Graces, the most generally received opinion is, that they are the daughters of Venus and Bacchus. Some painters represent them naked, because they say the Graces should never be disguised; others cover them with a thin veil. This costume is certainly preferable to the other, since there cannot be any grace without decency, nor any decency without a veil. Mythology, in general, gives us very few details of what relates to these interesting personages; to supply this deficiency I now send you, my Emilia, the narrative of a pilgrimage I made under your auspices to the temple of these three immortals.

THE TEMPLE OF THE GRACES.

The temple of the Graces is not situated in any place particularly consecrated to their worship. That temple is a fairy palace; let Beauty appear and immediately the edifice is seen towering to the clouds, presenting a sanctuary adorned with flowers and with trophies. Remove the enchantress and the charm flies, the temple vanishes.

Long had I sought this fugitive temple, which is so diffi

VOL. IV.

cult to reach, when I learned that since eight days it was fixed at. I began my pilgrimage on the instant. At every step of the roads I encountered a multitude of pilgrims who turned their backs on the very temple they professed them. selves desirous of finding. All around I beheld a crowd of originals of every species; some were coxcombs, learned women, musicians, coquets, painters, methodists, orators, poets, dancers, and philosophers; the greatest number of these last gaily made the journey on foot, since for them it was but a morning's walk. Women and foreigners came to the temple with all the paraphernalia of the toilet, and were regularly obliged to leave it at the gate. There was the greatest press; the wits and the beauties announced themselves with tones of authority from the centre of their gilded equipages; nevertheless, the foot passengers were first admitted. I walked behind them, and at the name of Emilia the door was opened to me. Arrived under the grand porch, I saw around me several separate altars, where those demi-gods were consulted who were known to be the favorite ministers of the Graces; each of them had his statue placed on his altar. My eyes wandered with delight over the sacred figures of Racine, La Fontaine, Sévigne, Deshoulieres, &c. A profound counsellor burned amber upon the altar of Montesquieu; the sublime author of The Spirit of Laws turned from his offering with disdain. At the same moment a woman, buried under folds of gauze, arrived at the foot of a groupe representing Sévigne, Deshoulieres, and Ninon, exclaiming with a faultering voice:

"Since thirty years and more, in spite of Time and Ill-nature, I have always stood at fifteen; each morning I grow young again, having discovered the road which leads back to youth."

"Take care," said the Oracle," it will infallibly lead thee to thy second childhood."

The timid girl of thirty smiled scornfully, and gave place to a languishing and pale beauty, who sighed out these words: -"Twenty times a day all my powers forsake me; I dare assert that no one faints more gracefully than I do. In swoon

ing I bring the universe under my laws. In my hysterical convulsions I have a breast of alabaster, I display a complexion more transparent than lilies, dying eyes swimming in brilliant tears, a foot worthy the gaze of sculptors, an arm of ivory; in fine, I represent before my lovers the death of Cleopatra."

The Oracle interrupted her thus :-" Though spasms, vapors, and fits may produce wonderful effects in Paris, we give them no harbor here; the temple of the three sisters is not an hospital."

The blue-eyed virgin, at this rough reply, rushed out to faint upon the steps of the portico, while a young and modest woman approached to take her station.

" Upon this face, changed by a contagious disorder, Sadness has engraven her characters; since I have lost all that can charm the eye, dare I present myself in the temple of the Graces ?"

The Oracle replied:" If thou no longer hast thy natural brightness, it is yet preserved by thy mind and thy heart : when thou shalt please without being beautiful, thy empire shall be more certain and more flattering. The god of Love smiles frequently upon amiable homeliness to revenge himself upon Nature. Thy figure makes thy mind forgotten for the first few moments, but thy mind soon makes thy figure forgotten for ever."-At these words the disgraced fair one knocked at the inner door of the temple, and was instantly admitted.

Before the door stood the celebrated Marcel,* comptroller of dress and manner; and upon the threshold appeared the illustrious La Bruyere, whose piercing eye discovered the minutest faults of character and talent. Marcel, in his familiar way, kept calling out: "Monsieur l'Abbe, you don't en

• Marcel was a Professor of the Graces, in high repute forty years ago. No one could be presented at court, or in the world, before they had taken lessons of Marcel. It was he who, in the midst of a ball, after an hour of complete abstraction from all things but what he contemplated, suddenly exclaimed-" How much there is in a minuet!"