Few and faint are the historic lights by which we can trace the victory of Christianity over Heathenism. The battle was fought on many fields, with every variety of weapon and manœuvre, and was protracted by many an obstinate resistance long after the main issue of the combat was decided. It was in the sixth century that St Benedict extinguished the fire on the altar of Apollo, on Monte Casino; and in many provinces of the em pire, Pagan worship was celebrated down to a much later date. The temples of Diana at Treves, and of Venus at Magdeburg (Parthenopolis), have been recorded as of the last to be deserted. Charlemagne destroyed the latter, which had been erected by Germanicus, and built a church to St Stephen in its place. But far deeper into the middle ages than this, winds the thread of Pagan tradition; and even in this our time, the peasants on the coast of old Etruria are seen annually to attach a gilded bunch of grapes to a plough, which is drawn by oxen down a long slope to the sea, a propitiation to the elemental powers in favour of the harvest and the vintage.* It was, however, by a simple and natural process that the sympathies of the people were frequently detached from the old faith, and associated to the history or tradition of the new. The temple of Jupiter the Preserver was readily re-consecrated to the Redeemer of mankind; and even the play upon sounds had its meaning when the prophet Elias appropriated the reverence long paid to Apollo as the sun. In Sicily, eight

But

celebrated temples of Venus were, within a short period, dedicated to the Virgin; and the same substitution is said to have taken place, at the command of the Empress Helena, in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. The deduction of Christian rites from Pagan ceremonies has unfortunately not been confined to the detection of Popish corruption, but has been extended by infidel writers to some of the vital principles of our religion. though this principle of adaptation might be unscrupulously acted upon, it was accompanied by a belief which gave the greatest distinctness and energy to the work of conversion from Heathenism. This was the plain conviction of the demoniac personality of each of the Pagan deities. The monotheism of the Jews does not seem to have prevented that people from regarding the gods of the Gentiles as substantial spirits of evil; and there appeared, perhaps, to be doctrines in Christianity, which rather encouraged than forbade a similar conclusion. The Christian who was liable to be thrown to the beasts for refusing to sacrifice to Jupiter, or to be rent asunder by the mob for scorning a bacchanalian rite, was not likely to consider the one as a symbol of power, or the other as a device of the fancy. Political considerations might enter into the question of Christian persecution, as, in after times, heresy often became treason; and the people might be indignant at the violation of their ancestral customs, or the invasion of their festal repose, but the Christian understood not this; "their gods were

VOL. XLV. NO. CCLXXXIII.

devils, and he could not worship them." For while some of them were powers claiming divine honour, which in his system could be only blasphemy, many others were such, that, from his own high moral ground, he could only look upon them as impersonated sins. Thus, in the early Christian imagination, the goddess Venus stood out as the very queen of devildom. Chastity being once proclaimed, not a high and peculiar virtue, but an essential, indispensable requisite of the Christian character, the antagonist appetite became a terrible evil, and the patroness and representative of it in the popular mind the worst of demons. The gods of Power would soon find themselves overcome: One had come into the world greater than they, and they must bend and pass away before him; but unconverted man owned, and would ever own, the reign of Venus; and she was there even at tempting to seduce the very holiest. She might be subdued and driven from the world at last, but not as long as vice was in the breast of man, open to her voice and ready for her rule. No wonder, then, that Venus is the great bond between Pagan and Christian tradition; no wonder that Augustin leaves it as a matter not for him to decide," whether Venus could have become the mother of Æneas by the embraces of Anchises" (De Civitat. Dei. 3, sec. 5); or that Kornman, a learned lawyer of the 17th century, should write a laborious book of the history, adventures, and devices of this subtle devil.

Venus was not dead. When the vow of betrothal recorded before her altar was violated by the Christian mother of the Corinthian maid, she could raise from the grave the broken-hearted victim of the new religion, and send her as a vampire to drink the life-blood of her destined bridegroom." She could, too, waylay the passionate youth in a form of surpassing beauty, and seduce him into marriage; sometimes, indeed, to be foiled by superior necromantic powers, and forced back into a hideous serpent shape, as was the Lamia of Greece; but at others to retain her influence even after her

deformity was revealed, as did, in comparatively later days, Melusina, the wife of Count Raymund of Poictiers, who was the fairest of mermaids. When, again, a Christian girl in Carthage was struck by the beauty of an image of Venus, and fancied herself like it, she was instantly seized by the goddess round her throat, and could take no food for seventy days and nights. She said, "a bird came to her every midnight and touched her mouth ;" and she was only relieved at last by the solemn functions of the Church and participation in its sacraments. Even when her open worship was utterly driven from the face of the earth, the magic art knew where and how to find her. She still had her favourites in the vegetable creation, plants, many of whose names testified to whom they were dedicated;

Venus's comb (Scandix), Venus's fly - trap (Dionea muscipula), Venus's looking - glass (Campanula), maiden-hair (Adianthum), and the mastic shrub, which covers with its thicket so many relics of hers and other fanes on the old Hellenic hills. Over the sixth day of the week she still held an important authority, making it in general belief most unpropitious to mankind, although certain theologians have maintained the contrary, resting on the facts that the Virgin ascended to heaven, and Granada was taken, on a Friday. Astrology determined that under the influence of Venus it was fortunate to make love, marry, take medicine, and arrange your will. The formula by which Venus is conjured, after a general preface, thus continues:-" Unde benedictum est nomen Creatoris in loco suo, et per nomina Angelorum servientium in tertio exercitu, et per nomen stellæ quæ est Venus, et per sigillum ejus quod quidem est sanctum; et per nomina prædicta, conjuro," &c., &c. The spirits of Friday, or impersonations of Venus, appeared generally in the following forms :a king with a sceptre riding on a camel; a maiden, naked or gloriously attired; a goat, a camel, a dove, and a green or white vestment. Still the agents of this unholy commerce frequented the haunts of ancient idolatry,

such as the 116 steps at Lyons, the remains of her temple there, up and down which sorcerers and witches were known to dance and gambol in their infernal yearly revelling.

But her principal method of seduction was to establish herself in some hilly region, and there, having constructed in the heart of the earth a palace of sensual delights, and having surrounded herself by subordinate spirits in loveliest shapes, by supernatural music, heard far and wide, and similar means, to entice into it brave and noble souls, and keep them there till they became debased and brutalized, and altogether lost. The difficulty of knowing much about these wondrous places of pleasure and sin arose from the fewness of those who have ever again returned to the world of men after a sojourn, or even entrance, there. William of Newbury records that, in the reign of King Henry I. of England, a peasant walking by a tumulus, about three stadia from the town of Burlington, heard songs and convivial sounds issuing from within it. He looked about for an entrance, astonished that that silent region and midnight hour should be so disturbed, and, finding a door open, went in. He saw an ample and brilliant chamber, and men and women engaged in high festivity and mighty mirth. One of the attendants, seeing him standing at the door, handed him a cup, which he grasped, flung the contents on the floor, and rushed out

into the night, amid tremendous tumult and persevering pursuit. On, however, he ran, until at last the cries and sounds died away, and he brought his booty safe into the town. This cup was given to the king, who presented it to the queen of David, king of Scotland, and it was returned by his descendant King William to King Henry II. of England. In the Swiss Chronicle of Stumpflius we are told that a tailor of Basle, in the year 1600, had a similar adventure. He passed through an iron door, and a succession of halls and gardens, guarded by frightful dogs, who barred his retreat. The goddess appeared with long flow. ing hair, but her lower body as a serpent's. She said she should be freed from this enchantment by three kisses of a chaste mortal, on whom she would bestow infinite treasure. He kissed her once, and she grew more monstrous still. He kissed her again, and she became so terrible and violent, he thought she would tear him in pieces, so turned round in desperation and got safely out: a fellow-townsman of his went into the cave again some time after, and, having found it full of human bones, died in a few days. The story of Tannhauser shall be given in verse: there seem to be several old ballads of the same burthen. The one generally known is that inserted in the collection of the Wanderhorn. The following may be regarded as a free paraphrase of it :