EXTRACTS FROM MR. GIBBON’S COMMON-PLACE BOORS

by the command of their father, one of the fifty daughters of Thestius shared the bed of Hercules; arid the young hero embraced all these ‘virgins with such undistinguishing and irresistible vigour, that at the expiration of fifty prolific nights he was still persuaded of the identity of his companion. Such is the modest and perhaps the original account of the first of the labours of Hercules, as it is given by - Apollodorus. (1)

II. According to another relation the conversion of the fifty virgins into wives and mothers was effected by the indefatigable Hercules (2) Deipnoso- within the space of seven days. Athenæus(2) has extracted this p.556. | anecdote from the writings of Herodotus, or rather Herodotus the’ (8) Ia.t.ix. Lycian, who, as it appears by another quotation, (3) had composed at wo least seventeen books on the actions of Hercules.

III. But the popular opinion which at length prevailed ascribed to Hercules the singular honour of consummating in one and the same ‘night his fifty, or at least his forty-nine marriages. ‘This miracle, (4) me iv. which seems to be insinuated by Diodorus Siculus, (4) is positively affirmed by Pausanias, (5) and that diligent traveller has recorded the Old "zai. virtue of one of the daughters of Thestius, who refusing to submit to Mabe the common fate of her sisters, was invested by Hercules with the sacerdotal dignity, and condemned to a life of perpetual celibacy. . The Christian apologists have adopted this third account, which according to their ideas of merit, was the least honourable to the son of Jupiter. “ Hercules, sanctus deus, natas quinquaginta de Thestio, nocte und perdocuit, et nomen virginitatis exponere et genetricum (s) Amobiut pondera sustinere.”” (6) Hucommen The vigour of a demigod can be matched only by that of a prophet. tor Elmenhorst, .

p. 144, quotes In the space of a single hour each of the eleven wives of Mahomet fathers on thie successively acknowledged him as:a tender and active husband. This interestingtopic: anecdote is related by Belon on the faith of an Arabic book entitled 7)Observations € Des Bonnes Coutumes de Mahomet.” (7)

unsecs Voyages A. ii, c. x. p. 179.

Stumantigms ge Le Clero Severus (ConneLivs).—The poem of tna, though its author is orlus )’s I-

tion. Amster: praised by Ovid and Quintilian, discovers very little taste or invention, fam 10% The philosophy is narrow, and probably erroneous (see the long descant .. ; | on