of the subtle and typical interpretations of the Grecian
mythology known to us at present were derived from the philosophy of a
later age. The explanations of religious fables--such, for instance,
as the chaining of Saturn by Jupiter, and the rape of Proserpine by
Pluto, in which Saturn is made to signify the revolution of the
seasons, chained to the courses of the stars, to prevent too
immoderate a speed, and the rape of Proserpine is refined into an
allegory that denotes the seeds of corn that the sovereign principle
of the earth receives and sepulchres [36];--the moral or physical
explanation of legends like these was, I say, the work of the few,
reduced to system either from foreign communication or acute
invention. For a symbolical religion, created by the priests of one
age, is reinstated or remodelled after its corruption by the
philosophers of another.

XII. We may here pause a moment to inquire whence the Greeks derived
the most lovely and fascinating of their mythological creations--those
lesser and more terrestrial beings--the spirits of the mountain, the
waters, and the grove.

Throughout the East, from the remotest era, we find that mountains
were nature's temples. The sanctity of high places is constantly
recorded in the scriptural writings. The Chaldaean, the Egyptian, and
the Persian, equally believed that on the summit of mountains they
approached themselves nearer to the oracles of heaven. But the
fountain, the cavern, and the grove, were no less holy than the
mountain-top in the eyes of the first religionists of the East.
Streams and fountains were dedicated to the Sun, and their exhalations
were supposed to inspire with prophecy, and to breathe of the god.
The gloom of caverns, naturally the brooding-place of awe, was deemed
a fitting scene for diviner revelations--it inspired unearthly
contemplation and mystic revery. Zoroaster is supposed by Porphyry
(well versed in all Pagan lore, though frequently misunderstanding its
proper character) to have first inculcated the worship of caverns
[37]; and there the early priests held a temple, and primeval
philosophy its retreat [38]. Groves, especially those in high places,
or in the neighbourhood of exhaling streams, were also appropriate to
worship, and conducive to the dreams of an excited and credulous
imagination; and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, burnt incense, not only
on the hills, but "under every green tree." [39]

These places, then--th