A CHAPTER ON HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY
"Ut sunt divorum, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo."
Latin Grammar.
Did you ever look
In Mr. Tooke,
For Homer's gods and goddesses?
The males in the air,
So big and so bare,
And the girls without their bodices.
There was Jupiter Zeus,
Who play'd the deuce,
A rampant blade and a tough one;
But Denis bold,
Stole his coat of gold,
And rigg'd him out in a stuff one,
Juno, when old,
Was a bit of a scold,
And rul'd Jove jure divino;
When he went gallivaunting,
His steps she kept haunting,[4]
And she play'd, too, the devil with Ino.
Minerva bright
Was a blue-stocking wight,
Who lodg'd among the Attics;
And, like Lady V.
From the men did flee,
To study the mathematics.
Great Mars, we're told,
Was a grenadier bold,
Who Vulcan sorely cuckold;
When to Rome he went,
He his children sent
To a she-wolf to be suckled.
Midas.
Sol, the rat-catcher,[5]
Was a great body-snatcher,
And with his bow and arrows
He Burked, through the trees,
Master Niobes,
As though they had been cock sparrows.
Diana, his sister,
When nobody kiss'd her,
Was a saint, (at least a semi one,)
Yet the vixen Scandal
Made a terrible handle
Of her friendship for Eudymion.
Full many a feat
Did Hercules neat,
The least our credit draws on;
Jesting Momus, so sly,
Said, "'Tis all my eye,"
And he call'd him Baron Munchausen.
Fair Bacchus's face
Many signs did grace,
(They were not painted by Zeuxis:)
Of his brewing trade
He a mystery made,[6]
Like our Calverts and our Meuxes.
There was Mistress Venus,
(I say it between us,)
For virtue cared not a farden:
There never was seen
Such a drabbish quean
In the parish of Covent Garden.
Hermes cunning
Poor Argus funning,
He made him drink like a buffer;
To his great surprise
Sew'd up all his eyes,
And stole away his heifer.
A bar-maid's place
Was Hebe's grace,
Till Jupiter did trick her;
He turn'd her away,
And made Ganimede stay
To pour him out his liquor.
Ceres in life
Was a farmer's wife,
But she doubtless kept a jolly house;
For Rumour speaks,
She was had by the Beaks
To swear her son Triptolemus.[7]
Miss Proserpine
She thought herself fine,
But when all her plans miscarried,
She the Devil did wed,
And took him to bed,
Sooner than not be married.
But the worst of the gods,
Beyond all odds,
It cannot be denied, oh!
Is that first of matchmakers,
That prince of housebreakers,
The urchin, Dan Cupido.
New Monthly Magazine.