ical
nature, for they seem to have been satisfied with anything that came
to hand, partly perhaps from a sort of feeling of good fellowship in
them and towards them, like that connected with the Brownies and
Cluricaunes, and other household goblins of northern extraction.

Like those goblins they were represented sometimes under very
grotesque forms. There is a bronze figure of one found at Herculaneum,
and figured in the Antiquites d'Herculanum, plate xvii. vol. viii.,
which represents a little old man sitting on the ground with his knees
up to his chin, a huge head, ass's ears, a long beard, and a roguish
face, which would agree well with our notion of a Brownie. Their
statues were often placed behind the door, as having power to keep out
all things hurtful, especially evil genii. Respected as they were,
they sometimes met with rough treatment, and were kicked or cuffed, or
thrown out of window without ceremony, if any unlucky accident had
chanced through their neglect. Sometimes they were imaged under the
form of dogs, the emblems of fidelity and watchfulness, sometimes,
like their brethren of the highways (Lares compitales), in the shape
of serpents.

The tutelary genii of men or places, a class of beings closely allied
to Lares, were supposed to manifest themselves in the same shape: as,
for example, a sacred serpent was believed at Athens to keep watch in
the temple of Athene in the Acropolis. Hence paintings of these
animals became in some sort the guardians of the spot in which they
were set up, like images of saints in Roman Catholic countries, and
not unfrequently were employed when it was wished to secure any place
from irreverent treatment.

From these associations the presence of serpents came to be considered
of good omen, and by a natural consequence they were kept (a harmless
sort of course) in the houses, where they nestled about the altars,
and came out like dogs or cats to be patted by the visitors, and beg
for something to eat. Nay, at table, if we may build upon insulated
passages, they crept about the cups of the guests; and in hot weather
ladies would use them as live boas, and twist them round their necks
for the sake of coolness.

Martial, however, our authority for this, seems to consider it as an
odd taste. Virgil, therefore, in a fine passage, in which he has
availed himself of the divine nature attributed to serpents, is only
describing a scene which he may often have witnessed: