moral truths. Thus, while Jupiter, to the vulgar mind, was the
god or the upper regions, "who dwelt on the Summits of the highest
mountains, gathered the clouds about him, shook the air with his
thunder, and wielded the lightning as the instrument of his wrath,"
yet in all this he was but the symbol of the ether or atmosphere
which surrounds the earth; and hence, the numerous fables of this
monarch of the gods may be considered merely as "allegories which
typify the great generative power of the universe, displaying itself
in a variety of ways, and under the greatest diversity of forms."
So, also, Apollo was, in all likelihood, originally the sun-god
of the Asiatic nations; displaying all the attributes of that
luminary; and because fire is "the great agent in reducing and
working the metals, Vulcan, the fire-god, naturally became an
artist, and is represented as working with hammer and tongs at
his anvil. Thus the Greeks, instead of worshipping Nature,
worshipped the Powers of Nature, as personified in the almost
infinite number of their deities.

The process by which the beings of Grecian mythology came into
existence, among an ardent and superstitious people, is beautifully
described by the poet WORDSWORTH as very naturally arising out
of the

Teeming Fancies of the Greek Mind.

The lively Grecian, in a land of hills,
Rivers, and fertile plains, and sounding shores,
Under a copse of variegated sky,
Could find commodious place for every god.
In that fair clime the lonely herdsman, stretched