public care little about the persons or offices of the courtiers, unless they be made acquainted with their dresses. I therefore give notice to the hatters whom it may concern, that his petasus was a winged cap. I am not sure that the full-dressed hats of the actors on the Théâtre François furnish a correct pattern of the article. He would certainly employ Hoby to furnish his talaria, if winged sandals were still in fashion; and if feet were not likely to accept the Chiltern Hundreds in favour of rail-roads. His caduceus was a wand ; virga, the pedagogue calls it; with two serpents Something too much of this!" As the god of merchants, and an officer to walk before the Lord Chancellor, he bears a purse. about it. 66 Hic petit Euphraten juvenis, domitique Batavi Nil nisi Cecropides, truncoque simillimus Hermæ : Juvenal. sat. 8. A statue of Hermes was religiously set up against the houses at Athens, of a cubic form, without hands or feet. This was called Herma. The figures here described were merely roughhewn square stones, technically called termes, set upright; but however shapeless the posts, the heads with which they were surmounted were of marble. Hermes also was used as a direction-post. He had no fingers, ours have no heads. The general opinion is, that the Greek name of the god was derived ἀπὸ τοῦ ἑρμηνεύειν, which means to show, Οι explain; and thence some of his attributes at least, among the rest that of standing by the roadside to direct puzzled wayfarers. But Mr. Gifford is of opinion that this last office has reference to some obscure idea of his being the same deity with the Sun. We may indeed infer that it requires some light to be a direction-post, from the proverb Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius: Every one cannot become a good schoolmaster. I am afraid the proverb will equally apply to the pupils. It is obvious why the tongues of the animals sacrificed were peculiarly devoted to Mercury. His other titles were, Σrpopaïos, in which he seems to have been the prototype of our renowned Jonathan Wilde, combining the offices of thief, thieftaker, and gaoler ; Εμπολαῖος, Κερδαῖος, Δόλιος, Ηγεμόνιος, Εναγώνιος, Διάκονος, Εριούνιος, and in his capacity of gentleman usher to Pluto, Χθόνιος and Καταβάτης, Cum multis aliis, quæ nunc perscribere longum est. ON THE MYTHOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF RHADAMANTHUS. Gnossius hæc Rhadamanthus habet durissima regna; Eneis, vi. 566. THIS distinguished public character in legal biography commenced practice in Crete. He gained considerable reputation by honourable conduct towards his clients, and a trick peculiar to himself, of impartiality in the distribution of justice. The career of honour in those simple and half-civilised days, was exactly the converse of ours: eminent men, instead of rising from the courts below to those above, descended from those above to those below. Rhadamanthus was accordingly promoted to the bench in that place, which in ancient times was not considered to bear a name offensive to polite ears. His Court of King's Bench was composed of three judges; ours of four. Pindar refers to this tribunal in his Olympic : Τὰ δ ̓ ἐν τῇδε Διὸς ἀρχῇ ̓Αλιρὰ, καλὰ γᾶς δικά ζει τις, ἐχθρᾷ λόγον φράσαις ἀνάγκα Βουλαῖς ἐν ὀρθαῖς Ραδαμάνθυος, "Ον παλὴς ἔχει Κρόνος ἕτοι μον αὐτῷ πάρεδρον, Πόσις ὁ πάντων Ρέας Ὑπέριαῖον ἐχοίσας θρόνον. ON THE MYTHOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF PLUTO. THE common sense of Pluto's character is, that he first instructed the Greeks in the decencies of funerals, and showed them how to perform the last offices to the deceased. In the early ages of mankind, every new invention to improve the insufficient comforts of life, every suggestion of improvement in morality, every advance towards refinement in manners, every suggestion of better feeling was made the subject of a fable. These inventions were partly stimulated by restless ingenuity, at a loss for subjects to work upon; partly by the eagerness of gratitude to pay the debt due to the first benefactors and civilisers of our species. In the case before us, a fictitious empire in the shades below was assigned to this teacher of a pious duty, of an extent and vastness with which no mortal monarch could compete. Universal sovereignty, over such a portion of the earth as was then ripe to admit of the restraints and benefits of government, would have allowed of a very limited range: they therefore constituted him monarch of the dead; not so much of regions as of ages. He was the brother of Jupiter. He was called Orcus; and in relation to his pedigree, Jupiter infernus, or Stygius. Proserpina was his wife; the daughter of Ceres. He possessed himself of her by forcible abduction, as she was gathering flowers in the Si |