es.

Pantomime as we now know the term, means, not only the Art of acting in
dumb show, but also that of a spectacle or Christmas entertainment. (I
may add in parenthesis, that in the early part of the last century--the
nineteenth--the dictionaries only refer to Pantomime as meaning the
former of the above two definitions, and not the latter.)

Pan, regarded as the symbol of the universe, was also the god of flocks,
pastures, and shepherds in classic Mythology, and the guardian of bees,
hunting and fishing in his Kingdom of Arcadia. His form, like the
Satyrs, both supposed to have been the offsprings of Mercury, was that
of a man combined with a goat, having horns and feet like the latter
animal.

_Mimos_ (Gr.), as I have stated in the beginning, means an "imitator,"
or a "mimic," and from which word we have the derivation of the words
"mimicry," "mimetic," and the like.

Pan was the traditional inventor of the Pandean pipes, and also from
his name we derive many words that are in our language, such as "panic"
(Pan used to delight in suddenly surprising the shepherds whilst tending
their flocks), and the other attributes of this noun, including that
recently coined term of the Americans, "panicy."

Pan is said to have been the son of Mercury, or even Mercury himself,
and others say that he was the son of Zeus. Mercury and Zeus, it will be
remembered in Mythology, were only names for Noah. Pan is unnoticed by
Homer.

A heathen deity of Italy, Lupercus, the guardian of their flocks and
pastures, has also been identified with Pan, and in whose honour annual
rural festivals, known as Lupercalia, were observed.

The Lupercalian festivals were held on the 15th of the Kalends of March.
The priests, Luperci, used to dance naked through the streets as part of
the ceremonies attached to the festival.

Mention has been made by Dr. Clarke, in his "Travels," Vol. IV., that
Harlequin is the god Mercury, with his short sword _herpe_, or his rod,
the _caduceus_ (which has been likened to the sceptre of Judah), to
render himself invisible, and to transport himself from one end of the
earth to the other, and that the covering on his head, the winged cap,
was the _petasus_. Apropos of this, the following lines in the tenth
Ode, of the first book of Horace, will probably occur to the reader:

"Mercury! Atlas' smooth-tongued boy, whose will
First trained to speed our wildest earliest race,
And gave their rough hewn