wished; and said she would send a bee to inform him of the hour of their meeting.

Who now was so delighted as Rhæcus! for he was a great admirer of the fair sex, and not a little proud of their admiring him in return; and no human beauty, whom he had known, could compare with the Hamadryad. It must be owned, at the same time, that his taste for love and beauty was not of quite so exalted a description as he took it for. If he was fond of the fair sex, he was pretty nearly as fond of dice, and feasting, and any other excitement which came in his way; and, unluckily, he was throwing the dice that very noon when the bee came to summon him.

Rhacus was at an interesting part of the game—so much so, that he did not at first recognize the object of the bee's humming. "Confound this bee!" said he, "it seems plaguily fond of me." He brushed it away two or three times, but the busy messenger returned, and only hummed the louder. At last he bethought him of the Nymph; but his impatience seemed to increase with his pride, and he gave the poor insect such a brush, as sent him away crippled in both his thighs.

The bee returned to his mistress as well as he could, and shortly after was followed by his joyous assailant, who came triumphing in the success of his dice and his gallantry. "I am here," said the Hamadryad. Rhæcus looked among the trees, but could see nobody. "I am here," said a grave sweet voice, "right before you." Rhæcus saw nothing. "Alas!" said she, "Rhæcus, you cannot see me, nor will you see me more. I had thought better of your discernment and your kindness; but you were but gifted with a momentary sight of me. You will see nothing in future but common things, and those sadly. You are struck blind to everything else. The hand that could strike my bee with a lingering death, and prefer the embracing of the dice-box to that of affectionate beauty, is not worthy of love and the green trees."

The wind sighed off to a distance, and Rhæcus felt that he was alone.

CHAPTER LIII.

The Nurture of Triptolemus.

TRIPTOLEMUS was the son of Celeus, king of Attica, by his wife Polymnia. During his youth he felt such an ardor for knowledge, and such a desire to impart it to his fellow-creatures, that, having but a slight frame for so vigorous a soul, and meeting with a great deal of jealousy and envy from those who were interested in being thought wiser, he fell into a wasting illness. His flesh left his bones; his thin hands trembled when he touched the harp; his fine warm eyes looked staringly out of their sockets, like stars that had slipped out of their places in heaven.

At this period, an extraordinary and awful sensation struck, one night, through the streets of Eleusis. It was felt both by those who slept and those who were awake. The former dreamed great dreams; the latter, especially the revellers and hypocrites who were pursuing their profane orgies, looked at one another, and thought of Triptolemus. As to Triptolemus himself, he shook in his bed with exceeding agitation; but it was with a pleasure that overcame him like pain. He knew not how to account for it; but he begged his father to go out and meet whatever was coming. He felt that some extraordinary good was approaching, both for himself and his fellow. creatures; but revenge was never farther from his thoughts. What was he to revenge? Mistake and unhappiness? He was too wise, too kind, and too suffering. "Alas!" thought he, "an unknown joy shakes me like a palpable sorrow; and their minds are but as weak as my body. They cannot bear a touch they are not accustomed to."

The king, his wife, and his daughters went out, trembling, though not so much as Triptolemus, nor with the same feeling.

There was a great light in the air, which moved gradually towards them, and seemed to be struck upwards from something in the street. Presently, two gigantic torches appeared round the corner; and underneath them, sitting in a car, and looking earnestly about, was a mighty female, of more than ordinary size and beauty. Her large black eyes, with her gigantic brows bent over them, and surmounted with a white forehead and a profusion of hair, looked here and there with an intentness and a depth of yearning indescribable. "Chaire, Demetre !" exclaimed the king in a loud voice ::-"Hail, creative mother!" He raised the cry common at festivals, when they imagined a deity manifesting itself; and the priests poured out of their dwellings, with vestment and with incense, which they held tremblingly aloft, turning down their pale faces from the gaze of the passing goddess.

It was Ceres, looking for her lost daughter Proserpina. The eye of the deity seemed to have a greater severity in its earnestness, as she passed by the priests; but at sight of a chorus of youths and damsels, who dared to lift up their eyes as well as voices, she gave such a beautiful smile as none but gods in sorrow can give; and emboldened with this, the king and his family prayed her to accept their hospitality.

She did so. A temple in the king's palace was her chamber, where she lay on the golden bed usually assigned to her image. The most precious fruits and perfumes burned constantly at the door; and at first, no hymns were sung, but those of homage and condolence. But these the goddess commanded to be changed for happier songs. Word was also given to the city, that it should remit its fears and its cares, and show all the happiness of which it was capable before she arrived. "For," said she, "the voice of happiness arising from earth is a god's best incense. A deity lives better on the pleasure of what it has created, than in a return of a part of its gifts."

Such were the maxims which Ceres delighted to utter during her abode at Eleusis, and which afterwards formed the essence of her renowned mysteries at that place. But the bigots, who adopted and injured them, heard them with dismay; for they were similar to what young Triptolemus had uttered in the

the aspirations of his virtue. The rest of the inhabitants gave themselves up to the joy, from which the divinity would only extract consolation. They danced, they wedded, they loved; they praised her in hymns as cheerful as her natural temper; they did great and glorious things for one another: never was Attica so full of delight and heroism: the young men sought every den and fearful place in the territory, to see if Proserpina was there; and the damsels vied who should give them most kisses for their reward. "Oh Dearest and Divinest Mother!" sang the Eleusinians, as they surrounded the king's palace at night with their evening hymn,-"Oh greatest and best goddess! who not above sorrow thyself, art yet above all wish to inflict it, we know by this thou art indeed divine. Would that we might restore thee thy beloved daughter, thy daughter Proserpina, the dark, the beautiful, the mother-loving; whom some god less generous than thyself would keep for his own jealous doating. Would we might see her in thine arms! We would willingly die for the sight; would willingly die with the only pleasure which thou hast left wanting to us."

The goddess would weep at these twilight hymns, consoling herself for the absence of Proserpina by thinking how many daughters she had made happy. Triptolemus shed weaker tears at them in his secret bed, but they were happier ones than before. "I shall die," thought he, "merely from the bitter. sweet joy of seeing the growth of a happiness which I must never taste; but the days I longed for have arrived. Would that my father would only speak to the goddess, that my passage to the grave might be a little easier!”

The father doubted whether he should speak to the goddess. He loved his son warmly, though he did not well understand him; and the mother, in spite of the deity's kindness, was afraid, lest in telling her of a child whom they were about to lose, they should remind her too forcibly of her own. Yet the mother, in an agony of alarm one day, at a fainting-fit of her son's, was the first to resolve to speak to her, and the king and she went and prostrated themselves at her feet. "What is this, kind hosts?" said Ceres, "have ye, too, lost a daughter?" "No; but we shall lose a son," answered the parents, "but for

the help of heaven." "A son!" replied Ceres, "why did you not tell me your son was living? I had heard of him, and wished to see him; but finding him not among ye, 1 fancied that he was no more, and I would not trouble you with such a memory. But why did you fear mine, when I could do good? Did your son fear it?"-" No, indeed," said the parents; "he urged us to tell thee."-" He is the being I took him for," returned the goddess: "lead me to where he lies."

They came to his chamber, and found him kneeling upon the bed, his face and joined hands bending towards the door. He had felt the approach of the deity; and though he shook in every limb, it was a transport beyond fear that made him rise—it was love and gratitude. The goddess saw it, and bent on him a look that put composure into his feelings. "What wantest thou," said she, "struggler with great thoughts?" "Nothing," answered Triptolemus, "if thou thinkest good, but a shorter and easier death."

"What! before thy task is done?" "Fate," he replied, "seems to tell me that I am not fitted for my task, and it is more than done, since thou art here. I pray thee, let me die; that I may not see every one around me weeping in the midst of joy, and yet not have strength enough left in my hands to wipe away their tears." "Not so, my child," said the goddess, and her grand harmonious voice had tears in it as she spoke ; "not so, Triptolemus; for my task is thy task; and gods work with instruments. Thou hast not gone through all thy trials yet; but thou shalt have a better covering to bear them, yet still by degrees. Gradual sorrow, gradual joy."

So saying, she put her hand to his heart and pressed it, and the agitation of his spirit was further allayed, though he returned to his reclining posture for weakness. From that time the bed of Triptolemus was removed into the temple, and Ceres became his second mother; but nobody knew how she nourished him. It was said that she summoned milk into her bosom, and nourished him at her immortal heart; but he did not grow taller in stature, as men expected. His health was restored, his joints were knit again, and stronger than ever; but he continued the same small, though graceful youth, only the sicklier