ideas and their modes of expression were concerned, although
it is not likely that any of them wrote poetry. This was
true in regard to the Saxon in his chilly northern home, as
well as to the Greek in the sunny southland. But, while the
balmy air and clear sky of the south tended to refine men's
thoughts and language, the rugged scenery and bleak storms
of the north made them uncouth, bold, and energetic. Yet
both the cultured Greek and the rude Saxon looked upon
Nature with much the same eyes, and there was a strange
resemblance in their manner of thinking and speaking. They
saw, that, in all the phenomena which took place around
them, there was a certain system or regularity, as if these
were controlled by some law or by some superior being; and
they sought, in their simple poetical way, to account for
these appearances. They had not yet learned to measure the
distances of the stars, nor to calculate the motions of the
earth. The changing of the seasons was a mystery which they
scarcely sought to penetrate. But they spoke of these
occurrences in a variety of ways, and invented many
charming, stories with reference to them, not so much with a
view towards accounting for the mystery, as towards giving
expression to their childlike but picturesque ideas.

Thus, in the south, when reference was made to the coming of
winter and to the dreariness and discomforts of that season
of the year, men did not know nor care to explain it all, as
our teachers now do at school; but they sometimes told how
Hades had stolen Persephone (the summer) from her mother
Demetre (the earth), and had carried her, in a chariot drawn
by four coal black steeds, to the gloomy land of shadows;