river-god Alpheus. Alpheus, nothing hindered, turned the course of his river to pursue her. The nymph prayed again, and was conveyed under ground, but the god was still after her. She was hurried even under the sea, but he still pursued; when she rose again in the island of Sicily for breath, there he was beside her. We are left to suppose that his pertinacity prevailed; for whatever present was bestowed upon his waters in Arcady is said to have made its appearance in the Sicilian fountain. Among all the names to be found in poetry, perhaps there is not a more beautiful one than this of Arethusa; and it turns well into English. Hear Milton, who speaking of Alpheus says that he

"Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse."

The modern Sicilian name is Retusa, which, pronounced in the soft manner of the Italians, and with something of z in the s (as we read the other), is not destitute of the beauty of the original.*

We were admiring, at this part of our article, that the ancients, among the less philosophical companions of their mythology, had not chosen sometimes to mingle the two species of Naiads and Dryads, considering that trees have so much to do with moisture, and with the origin of streams. Our attention was drawn at the same moment to a passage in Ovid; where he speaks of the Nymph Syrinx, a Naiad, as being "among the Hamadryads of Arcady." Perhaps he only meant to say, that she lived among them, as a Naiad, for the reason just mentioned,

In Italy, among its strange union of things, ancient and modern, we saw one day upon a mantel-piece a card of a Marquis de Retuse. This was the designation, Frenchified, of the district in Sicily including the ancient fountain. Here was the Marquis of Arethusa !

might be supposed to do; but the turn of the words and custom of the language both seem in favor of the other supposition. Sandys, however, clearly takes the passage in the former sense. Ovid says, "On the cold mountains of Arcady, and among the Arcadian Hamadryads, there was a Naiad," and according to his translator, she only lived amongst them. "Then thus the god" (Mercury who is singing and telling stories to Argus to get him to sleep)

"Then thus the god his charmed ears inclines :
Amongst the Hamadryad Nonacrines,

On cold Arcadian hills, for beauty famed,
A Nais dwelt."*

The Dryads and Hamadryads are often confounded with one another; nor is the difference between them, when it is made, always justly discerned. Menage tells of somebody, who, on being asked by a lady what the difference was between a Dryad and a Hamadryad, said, the same as between an archbishop and a bishop. If every solitary tree had its Hamadryad, the woodman could not have approached it without impiety. The truth is, that as old trees of this kind became sanctified, either by the mere desire of keeping them alive, or by some votive circumstances attached to them as objects of religion, they were gifted with the care of a nymph. She was, in consequence, to die when they did; and the sacrilegious peasant, while he was heaving his axe at the old trunk, would have to strike at the fair limbs which it enclosed.

A story has come down to us in Apollonius of the vengeance that overtook criminals of this sort, and of

*"Tam deus, Arcadia gelidis in montinis," inquit,
"Inter Hamadryades celeberrima Nonacrinas

Nais una fuit."

dreadful denouncements against their posterity; which, however, were not inexpiable by a little worship and sacrifice. But the gratitude of the nymph, when her tree was preserved from destruction, and the preserver turned out otherwise not insensible, was boundless. Charon of Lampsacus, an old commentator upon the writer just mentioned, tells us that, when Arcas the son of Calisto was hunting, he met a nymph in the woods, who requested his aid for an old oak-tree on the banks of a river, which the river was undermining. He rescued it from its threatened fate, and out of gratitude the nymph bore him two children. In another story, related by the same author, the hero was not so lucky. This person, whose name was Rhocus, was applied to on a similar account; and having evinced a like humanity, showed a due taste in the first instance, when requested to ask his reward. The nymph promised to meet him; adding, that she would send a bee to let him know the time. The bee came accordingly, but Rhocus, who was occupied with a game of dice, was impatient at being interrupted, and hurt the wings of the little messenger in brushing him away. The nymph, offended at this proof of the superficial nature of his feelings, not only would have nothing to say to him, but deprived him of the use of his limbs.*

It remains only to speak of the Bacchantes, the Hesperides, and certain solitary nymphs who lived apart, and

* We are obliged, as the historian of these our fictitious truths, to relate them in all their circumstances; otherwise the lady might have stopped short of giving Rhocus a palsy. It is a remarkable instance of the natural dulness of Natalis Comes (for which Scaliger gives him a knock), that in relating this story of Rhocus and the Nymph, he leaves off with her sending him the bee. [The story of the Hamadryad is told very minutely and beautifully in the "Indicator," and is the subject of one of Landor's "Hellenics."— ED.]

held a state like goddesses. The rest are not sufficiently identified with the class, or are too little distinguished from the former varieties, to need particular mention.

The Bacchantes, or Nymphs of Bacchus, are of a very different character from their sisters. They are equally remarkable for the turbulence of their movements, and the rigidness of their chastity; though as to the latter, “Juvenal," says an Italian Mythology," is of another opinion; and Lycophron gives the title of Bacchantes to dissolute women. How the followers of the god of wine came to be thought so austere we know not. The delicacy of the moral, if it existed, has escaped us. If it were meant to insinuate that a drunken female repelled every thing amatory by the force of disgust, no case could be clearer: but ancient mythology abounds with the loves of wood-gods for these ladies, who on the other hand struggled plentifully to resist them. According to the authority just mentioned, Nonnus, a Greek author of the fifth century, who wrote a poem on Bacchus as big as a tun, represents them as so jealous of their virgin honor, that they went to bed with a live serpent round their waists, to guard against surprise. The perplexity in this matter originated, perhaps, in the chastity that was expected from the ordained priestesses of Bacchus, who are often confounded with his nymphs. But so little had the nature of the latter to do with chastity, that those who undertook to represent them, gave rise to the greatest scandal that ever took place in the heathen world, and such as the Romans were obliged to suppress by a regular state interference.

The Hesperides, so called because they were the granddaughters (Milton says the daughters) of Hesperus, and

* Dizionario d'ogni Mitologia. art. "Baccanti."

otherwise Atlantides, or daughters of Atlas, were three nymphs, who were commissioned, in company with a dragon, to guard the tree from which Juno produced the golden apples that she gave to Jupiter on her marriage day. The nymphs sang, and the dragon never slept; and so, in the melancholy beauty of that charm, the tree ever stood secure, and the apples “hung amiable.” It was one of the labors of Hercules to undo this custody, and carry away the apples. The nymphs could only weep, while he killed the dragon. Various interpretations have been given to this story. Some say the apples meant sheep, from a word which signifies both; and that the sheep were called golden, because they were beautiful; the common metaphorical sense of that epithet among the ancients. Others discover in it an allegory on one of the signs of the Zodiac, on the sin of avarice, the discovery of a gold mine, &c. ; but we shall be forgetting the spirit of our subject for the letter. Milton, in his "Comus," has touched upon the gardens of Hesperus, but not in his happiest manner. There is something in it too finical and perfumed. We have quoted the best lines when making out our list of the nymphs. Lucan makes you feel the massiveness of the golden boughs, and has touched beautifully on the rest.