nious fiction. The offspring was reputed divine. Their greatest heroes were the fruit of goddeffes approached by mortals; juft as we hear of the doughtieft knights being born of fairies.

6. With the greateft fierceness and favageness of character, the utmoft generofity, hofpitality, and courtesy, was imputed to the heroic ages. Achilles was at once the moft relentnefs, vindictive, implacable, and the friendlieft of men. We have the very fame reprefentation in the Gothic romances. As in those lawless times, dangers and diftreffes of all forts abounded, there would be the fame demand for compaffion, gentleness, and generous attachmeats to the unfortunate, thofe especially of their own clan, as of refentmen, rage, and animofity, against their enemies?

7. Again: the martial games, celebrated in ancient Greece, on great and folemn occafions, had the fame origin, and the fame purpose, as the tournaments of the Gothic warriors.

8. Laftly, the paffions for adventures, fo natural in their fituation, would be as naturally attended with the love of praise and glory.

Hence the fame encouragement, in the old Greek and Gothic times, to panegyrifts and poets.

I am aware, that in the affair of religion and gallantry, the refemblance between the hero and the knight is not fo ftriking.

But the religious character of the knight was an accident of the times, and no proper effect of his civil condition.

And that his devotion for the fex fhould fo far furpafs that of the hero, is a fresh confirmation of my

fyftem.

For the confideration had of the females in the feudal conftitution will, of itself, account for this difference, It made them capable of fucceeding to fiefs as well as the men. And does not one fee, on the inftant, what refpect and dependence this privilege would draw upon them?

It was of mighty confequence who fhould obtain the grace of a rich heiress. And though, in the ftrict feudal times, fhe was fuppofed to be in the power and difpofal of her fuperior lord, yet this rigid ftate of things did not last long. Hence we find fome diftreffed damfel was the fpring and mover of every knight's adventure. She was to be rescued by his arms, or won by the fame and admiration of his prowess. The plain meaning of all which was this: that, as in those turbulent feudal times a protector was neceffary to the weakness of the fex, fo the courteous and valorous knight was to approve himfelf fully qualified for that office.

It

may be obferved, that the two poems of Homer were intended to expofe the michiefs and inconve niencies arifing from the political ftate of old Greece: the Iliad, the diffenfions that naturally spring up among independent chiefs; and the Odyfey, the infolence of their greater fubjects, more especially when unreftrained by the prefence of their fovereign.

And can any thing more exactly refemble the condition of the feudal times, when, on occafion of any great enterprize, as that of the crufades, the defigns of the confederate chriftian ftates were prepetually fruftrated, or interrupted at leaft, by the diffenfions of their leaders; and their affairs at home

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as perpetually diftreffed and difordered by the rebellious ufurpations. of their greater vassals ? Jerufalem was to the European, what Troy had been to the Grecian princes.

Defcription of an ancient Grecian Baf-relief, reprefenting the Grotto of Eleufis. By J. Bartoli, Antiquary to bis Sardinian Majefty.

THIS baf-relief reprefents a grotto, over the entrance of which is an old man with a long beard between two rams, that have each a lion by them. Underneath the lion, on the right hand, is the face of another old man, with a longer beard than the former. In the inner part of the grotto, upon a little elevation, is the figure of a woman, cloathed in a long robe that reaches to her feet, and over that is a shorter veft girded with a belt. She holds in each hand a fort of staff, the length of which is equal to the height of the figure. The ground of the grotto, on the left hand, prefents the figure of another woman, habited in the fame manner; but with a bufhel on her head, from which a veil feems to flow, that, fpreading over her back, reaches down to the middle of her leg. On her right hand a dog fits at her feet; and on the fame fide is a young man, whofe head, legs, and feet are bare. He carries a little vafe or cruet in his right hand, and with his left holds up the fkirts of his garment, which is fhort. He feems to be juft entering the grotto, followed by a dog.

Many learned men have fuppofed this antique to reprefent the cave of Trophonius; but M. Bartoli, who

has long made the works of Virgil his particular, ftudy, thinks, with Atterbury, and many others, that in his Eneid the poet has copied living originals, which he has fhadowed under fictitious names; and indeed Servius, in the 752d verfe of the fixth book, fays, "We find in antiquity, that this poem was not called the Æneid, but the Actions of the Roman people." Nothing then can be more useful or more interesting than to trace in this poem those paffages that are applicable to Rome and Auguftus. According to the opinion of Warburton, the poet, in the 6th book of his Æneid, had no other defign than to give a defcription of the initiation of his hero into the Eleufinian mysteries; and that, in the perfon of Æneas, he propofed to give the pattern of a perfect law-giver. M. Bartoli is ftill more particular, and endeavours to prove, that the initiation of Auguftus himself into thofe great myfteries, was the action celebrated in that book, Dion Caffius, lib. 51. declares, that this prince, after the battle of Actium, paffing through Athens in his return to Rome, was initiated in the mysteries of the two goddeffes, Ceres and Proferpine. On this head, the testimony of Suetonius (in the Life of Auguftus, chap. 9.) is plain and exprefs.

In the defcription of the Eleufinian myfteries, under the emblem of a defcent to hell, M. Bartoli obferves, that the poet speaks of three different caves: that of the Sibyl in the hollow of a rock, that which led to hell, and that which ferved for the habitation of Cerberus. This, according to Bartoli, is a proof that the mysteries of Ceres and Proferpine were celebrated in a cave; or, at least, agreeable to the

remark

ftrongly characterife this goddefs; and he laments, that, her hands being broken, we are deprived of further proofs.

In his opinion, the young man on the right hand of Ceres is Triptolemus, whom that goddess inftructed in agriculture; and the little vafe he holds in his hand is the fymbol of the Eleufinian myfteries, which he had received from Ceres, and of which he was the inftitutor.

Athenæus (lib. z.) defcribes this vafe to be of baked earth, and in the form of a top with which children play: he fays, that it was used the last day of the myfteries, to which it gave its name.

M. Bartoli believes the face of the old man, with a long beard, on the right hand of the grotto, to be only a mafque. It is certain, that mafques were made use of in the celebration of these myfteries, and perhaps Virgil alludes to this, in thofe words that relates to the Sibyl: She warn'd him that thofe fleeting

impiety. It remains now to know, what perfonage the sculptor defigned to reprefent by the mafque, whether Silenus, Celeus the father of Triptolemus, or Æfculapius. M. Bartoli conjectures it to be Mufæus, who was particularly zealous in thefe myfteries; and, indeed, he is the first perfon to whom the Sibyl in Virgil addresses her discourse.

In the last place, the old man, feated above the grotto, appears to M. Bartoli to be Orpheus, the mafter of Mufæus. We may eafily imagine, that this person, who was faid to be the first that inftructed mankind in religious ceremonies, must have a great part in the Eleufinian myfteries. He is feated, the attitude in which he is commonly reprefented: but he appears intirely inactive, and without his lyre, among several animals ; and this, according to M. Bartoli, fhews the understanding of the artift. The two rams by him feem, with earnest if they were apprehenfive that the looks, to implore his affiftance, as lions would refume their natural ferocity, unless he continued to foften them by the harmony of his mufic. Claudian gives us the fame idea in the preface to his fecond book:

collection of the wife inftructions received in the feasts of Eleufis; and teaches us, that the beft regulated fociety fhould always guard againft idleness and vices capable of introducing corruption, and efpecially against the doctrine of thofe falfe fophifts, who, by overturning eftablished maxims, would only revive barbarity. M. Bartoli concludes his differtation with fome obfervations upon the two dogs, of which we have spoken.

A Differtation on the Antiquity of Glafs in Windows. In a Letter to the Rev. Tho. Birch, D. D. Secret. R. S. By the Rev. John Nixon, M. A. F. R. S. From the Philofophical Transactions for the Year 1758, Vol. L. Part II. Read before the Royal Society, March 2. 1758.

I Had the honour laft winter to lay before the Royal Society a few obfervations upon fome of the curiofities found at Herculaneum, &c.. Among other articles, I juft mentioned a piece of a plate of white glass; and now beg leave to inquire into the ufes, to which fuch plates might be applied in the early age, to which this fragment undoubtedly belongs.

And here a perfon, who forms his

ideas of ancient cuftoms by what he fees practifed in later times, may be ready to offer several conjectures; in fome of which he will, probably, be mistaken; as in others he may be juftified by the genuine evidences of antiquity.

And, firft, it is obvious to imagine, that fuch plates might ferve for fpecula, or looking-glaffes. And, indeed, that Specula were anciently made, not only of metals, and fome ftones, as the phengites, &e. but alfo of glafs, may, I think, be collected from Pliny, who, having mentioned the city of Sidon as formerly famous for glafs-houses, adds immediately afterwards, Siquidem etiam fpecula excogitaverat. But then it is to be observed, that before the application of quickfilver in the conftructing of thefe glaffes (which, I prefume, is of no great antiquity), the reflection of images by fuch Specula muft have been effected by their beiug befmeared behind, or tinged thro' with fome dark colour, especially black, which would obftruct the refraction of the rays of light. Upon thefe hypothefes (fuppofing the tincture to be given after fufion) the lamina before us may be allowed to be ca pable of anfwering the purpofe here affigned.

It may further be fuggefted, that plates of this kind might be in

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tended