it; but at least hoping, that he will be as indulgent towards its defects, as I have been careful, both by repeatedly examining it for myself, and by listening to the suggestions of friends eminently qualified for advising me, to render those defects as few and as inconsiderable as I was able. VESTIGES OF ANCIENT MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, &c. &c. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE RELIGION OF ITALY AND SICILY. As I descended from the Alps, I was admonished of my entrance into Italy, by a little chapel to the Madonna, built upon a rock by the road-side; and from that time till I repassed this chain of mountains, I received almost hourly proof that I was wandering amongst the descendants of that people which is described by Cicero to have been the most B religious of mankind. Though the mixture of religion with all the common events of life is any thing but an error, yet I could not avoid regretting that, like their heathen ancestors, the modern Italians had supplied the place of one great Master-mover by a countless host of inferior agents. The multiplication of gods, in the first instance, may seem to have arisen from the incorrect idea which unassisted reason was likely to form of the Deity, by transferring to the powers of the unseen world the same qualities and imperfections which belong to the noblest of visible animals-the passions and infirmities of helpless man. For as the human individual can but accomplish a limited number of actions; limited by his disposition to do good or evil; by his bodily and mental capacities; by space and time; so did it become necessary that the gods, who were thought to labour under the same difficulties, though not in the same degree, should be proportionally multiplied. Thus |