returns after death to the
habitations of his congenial star, and there leads a blessed life;
but, failing in his duties, he is doomed to live a thousand years in
a degraded state. Sometimes a human soul is destined to animate a
wild beast, never to be relieved until it reattain the purest of its
first and best existence.

The Goths and Vandals entertained the opinion that the first man and
woman were made of an ash-tree. Odin, it is said, gave them breath,
Hener endowed them with reason, and Lodur injected blood into their
veins, and provided them with beautiful faces.

Pan has been represented as the emblem of all things, and among the
learned of early times he passed for the first and oldest of the
divinities. His person is composed of various and opposite parts--a
man and a goat. According to the most ancient Egyptians and Greeks, he
had neither father nor mother, but sprang of Demogorgon at the same
instant with the Fatal Sisters, the Parcae.

The power of the heathen gods and goddesses is reported as truly
wonderful. Apollo turned Daphne, whom he loved, into a laurel, and his
boy Hyacinth into a violet. Mars was the son of Jupiter and Juno, or,
according to Ovid, of Juno alone, who conceived him at the smell of a
flower shown her by the goddess Flora.

Juno is esteemed the goddess of kingdoms and riches. She is
represented as a majestic beautiful woman, riding in a golden chariot
drawn by peacocks, waving a sceptre in her hand, and wearing a crown
set about with roses and lilies, and encircled with fair Iris, or the
rainbow. She is also supposed to preside over matrimony and births,
and is the guardian angel of woman.

Venus is the goddess of love and beauty; she sprang from the foam of
the sea. As soon as she was born she was cast upon the island of
Cyprus, where she was educated, and afterwards being carried to
heaven, was married to Vulcan. Her image is fair and beautiful; she is
clothed with purple, glittering with diamonds. There are two Cupids on
her side, while around her are the Graces. Her chariot is of ivory,
drawn by swans, doves, or swallows.

Whilst Latona was wandering through the fields of Lycia, she desired
to drink from a spring at the bottom of a valley, but the country
rustics drove her away. In spite of her entreaties, they refused to
allow her to slake her thirst, whereupon, in wrath, she, cursing them,
said, "May ye always live in this water!" Immediately they were turned
into frogs,