cording to the Platonic fancies, sustained a middle character between gods and men; and some of them were supposed to be the shades of departed heroes, and distributed into benevolent and malignant beings; the former appointed to watch over the welfare of individuals, and the latter permitted to molest and to delude them by fallacious and deceptive visions likę that before mentioned, which Homer represents to have seduced Agamemnon to lead out the Grecian troops in the vain hope of the immediate destruction of Troy.

Upon such a subject the imagination had no limits, and the most wild and extravagant conceits that could be imagined were often received with wonderful credulity. The whole of the Pagan mythology, composed of the contexture of oriental and Grecian fictions, was embellished, if not fabricated by poetical invention; and in its translation from Grecian to Roman literature, was decorated with additional colourings; ornaments of fancy became objects of religious reverence, and poetry

enlarged the structure of superstition. Thus what was concerted in figurative allusion, was misinterpreted to imply real existence, and the Pantheon, or Pandemonium of Antiquity, was peopled with a

"Thousand demigods on golden seats,
Frequent and full."

The heathens worshipped Sleep under different images of a god, or goddess. The rites observed towards them originated, probably, in that early respect which was paid to dreams. The bold imagination of Homer conceived, that impending circumstances were to be found in dreams, and that

Immured within the silent bower of Sleep,
Two portals firm the various phantoms keep,
Of iv'ry one; whence flit to mock the brain,
Of winged lies, a light fantastic train :
The gate opposed pellucid valves adorn,
And columns fair incas'd with polish'd horn;
Where images of truth for passage wait,
With visions manifest of future fate *.

* Dacier from Eustathius supposes, that by horn, which transparent, Homer means the air or heavens, which are

Virgil adopted the idea.

Two gates the silent house of Sleep adorn,
Of polished iv'ry this, that of transparent horu:
True visions through transparent horn arise,
Through polish'd iv'ry pass deluding lies *.

translucent; and that by ivory he denotes the earth, which is gross and opaque. Thus the dreams which come from the earth, that is through the gate of ivory, are false: those from heaven, or through the gate of horn, true. Pope imagines that this fable was built upon a real foundation, that there were places called the gates of Falsehood and Truth at Memphis, in Egypt, from whence Homer draws some of his allusions.-See note on Pope's Odyss. B. 19. The author of the Archeologiæ Atticæ conceives that the gate of horn was suggested by the horns of the ram which was sacrificed to Amphiaraus and Chalcas, and Podaliris, after which the votaries slept on the melotie, or fleeces, L. vii. C. 3. and Strabo, L. vi. The Scholiast on Homer represents the horn to be a fit emblem of truth, as being transparent when thinned; the ivory a proper figure of falsehood, as opaque. Some by xɛpas understand the eye, the cornea tunica; and by tλapas the mouth and teeth, that which is seen appearing to be more certain than that which is spoken.

*B. 6. Dryden's Translat.

Philostratus tells us, that in allusion to these doors it was customary to represent in pictures a dream personified in a white garment upon a black one with an horn in his hand.

The fictions of poetry were, however, endless, and varied with much luxuriance of fancy. Virgil elsewhere conceived that

Full in the midst of the infernal road

An elm display'd her dusky arms abroad,
The god of sleep there hides his heavy head,
And empty dreams on every leaf are spread *.

The elm was by some supposed as a barren tree, to be expressive of the vanity of dreams. Servius, on the authority of Aristotle, represents them to be especially fallacious on the fall of the leaf in autumn.

From the elm, on the leaves of which dreams were supposed to be spread, or under the shadow of which their embodied forms were

* B. 6. Dryden's Translat.

represented to sit, Morpheus, the servant of Sleep, was sometimes described as bringing them to present to the minds of those who slept, exhibiting, as his name imported, the forms of men :

"And none than he more skilful to express

Men's gestures, language, countenance, and dress."

Ovid paints Night as a figure of which the temples were encircled by poppies, and as accompanied by a multitude of dreams *. Tibullus represents sleep and dreams as attending the car of Night:

"Now Night leads out her steeds, her car ascends,

A glittering circle of the stars attends;

Next Sleep with dusky wings doth silent move,

And sable dreams around uncertain rove."

Sleep, though here described as moving slowly, is elsewhere portrayed with wings, as Statius addresses it:

"Let not thy pinion o'er mine eyes be spread,
But a soft influence from thy rod be shed t."

Metamor. Lib. ii. 1. 364.

+ Statius Sylv. L. v. Consult also Imagin. Deor. P. 121.