so favored.....I translated all the poets said on this subject, into a confirmation of my own sublime ideas......and the purity of the soul..........cleansed from all sensual habits......appeared to me a leading recommendation to the favor of the Gods, and to qualify us for their superior converse.

To my master Theogiton I at length explained my sentiments........and he, ......by his replies,......contrived rather to increase than satisfy my curiosity. ......He gave me to understand these were mysteries he hesitated to confide to my youth.......but assured me of their possibility......and drew such a picture of the bliss of those who were considered worthy the converse of the Deities, as inflamed my mind to an extravagant state of anxiety.

The solemnity of his manner, when I begged to ask how that happiness might be attained.......filled me with

awe.......and I resolved to await his own free will to enlighten me on the subject........In this, however, I was disappointed;.......but he continued to keep my curiosity awake, till I could no longer resist proposing new ques-. tions to him.

At last he conducted me to a grotto in the consecrated grove of Apollo..... which, according to the public belief, is supposed to have been the dwelling of the sacred Nymphs....whose images ..........cut out in cypress..........occupy the niches which surround the interior of this grotto.

Here.......pointing to a mossy bank ......he seated himself at my side; and after some prefatory discourse......calculated to elevate my expectations..... he began to unveil the holy mysteries of Hermes and Orpheus......Numberless ablutions......repeated offerings of incense......and divers mysterious incantations, preceded the ceremony.

"All this" said he, "is necessary "to detach the soul from its earthly "bonds, and enable it freely to contemplate Divinity.

"Our frail mortality would be un"equal to sustain the bright glories "of celestial perfection, if its splendor

was not softened by a kind of cor

poreal veil........We should.......like "Semele......be consumed by its ra"diance."

Simple and enthusiastic, I implicitly believed all he said.........devoured the words and actions of the solemn Theogiton with religious wonder.....and improved so rapidly by his instructions, that I could think of nothing.....sleeping or waking......but these sublime visions to which I was soon to be admitted....Indeed so flattering were my dreams, that I sometimes felt myself transported to those happy regions which Pindar so beautifully describes.

I sometimes sat down a guest at the banquet of the Gods.....and sometimes rambled in the Elysian fields amidst the blessed Spirits of Immortality.

It' may seem paradoxical........but is

nevertheless true.......that the charms of imagination excel all those which Nature has given to the senses.

Imagination is more brilliant than the lustre of meridian day........It possesses more attraction than the incensebreathing morn......the fragrant bloom of Spring......or the full-ripened beauties of maturing Summer.......Its form is ever new.......its colours ever varied .........its changes rapid........fascination succeeds to fascination.......and all is perfect.

In short......imagination creates its own worlds......its own objects.....and teaches them its own peculiar art of pleasing.

I passed eight days in the performance of those duties and consecrations enjoined me by Theogiton.......and by continued efforts to release my soul from all worldly propensities.........I worked myself up to a belief that I should witness something superior to any thing I had even surmised.

One night.......when the lateness of the hour approached to Morn.......and all was still and hushed around me..... I wandered to the grotto of the Nymphs ....and having repeated many emphatic strains and holy invocations....I threw myself down a bank of turf.......with my face upwards.......intent upon the moon, which at that time shone full upon the grotto.

I lay pondering on the probability of what might happen to me, if the resplendent Orb should quit her hea venly sphere to bless me as her Endymion.