Neptune is thus described as calming a tempest raised by Eolus:

Meantime, imperial Neptune heard the sound
Of raging billows breaking on the ground.
Displeased, and fearing for his watery reign,
He reared his awful head above the main,
Serene in majesty, then rolled his eyes
Around the space of earth, and seas, and skies.
He saw the Trojan fleet dispersed, distressed,
By stormy winds and wintry heaven oppressed.
Full well the god his sister's envy knew,

And what her aims, and what her arts pursue.
He summoned Eurus and the western blast,
And first an angry glance on both he cast,

Then thus rebuked,- Audacious winds! from whence
This bold attempt, this rebel insolence?

Is it for you to ravage seas and land,
Unauthorised by my supreme command?

To raise such mountains on the troubled main ?
Whom I-but first 'tis fit the billows to restrain,
And then you shall be taught obedience to my reign.
Hence! to your lord, my royal mandate bear,-
The realms of ocean and the fields of air

Are mine, not his. By fatal lot to me
The liquid empire fell, and trident of the sea.
His power, to hollow caverns is confined;
There let him reign the jailor of the wind,

With hoarse command his breathing subjects call,
And boast and bluster in his empty hall.'

He spoke and, while he spoke, he smoothed the sea,
Dispelled the darkness, and restored the day.
Cymothoë, Triton, and the sea-green train
Of beauteous nymphs, the daughters of the main,
Clear from the rocks the vessels with their hands;
The god himself with ready trident stands,
And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands;
Then heaves them off the shoals.—Where'er he guides
His finny coursers, and in triumph rides,
The waves unruffle, and the sea subsides.

VIRGIL'S Eneid, book 1.

Pluto was the son of Saturn, and brother to Jupiter and Neptune. On the partition of his sire's dominions, the empire of hell fell to his lot; at the commencement of his reign he endeavoured to procure a consort, but the goddesses affrighted at his gloomy abode refused his offers; in consequence of which, he seized the nymph Proserpine and carried her to the infernal regions, where she became his bride. This god was known by the names of Orcus, Agelastus, and Clytopoeon; but temples and statues were not erected to him as to the

other superior gods, as he was considered malevolent and inexorable. The only sacrifices offered to him were black bulls, but the cypress, the narcissus, and all things gloomy and inauspicious were sacred to him.

Pluto is often represented as sitting on a throne of sulphur, from which issue the four rivers, Phlegethon, Acheron, Lethe, and Cocytus; Proserpine sits on his left hand, Cerberus at his feet, and the Harpies, Fates, Eumenides, &c. surround him. At other times he is seated in a chariot drawn by four horses, and holding in his hand a fork similar to the trident of Neptune, but with two prongs. The giant Typheus was immured under Trinacria or Sicily, and struggling for emancipation he caused such convulsions in the earth, that Pluto became alarmed and visited these upper regions, and it was during this sojourn that he saw, and became enamoured of, the daughter of Ceres.

His terrors reach the direful king of hell;
He fears his throes will to the day reveal

The realms of night, and fright his trembling ghosts.

This to prevent, he quits the Stygian coasts,

In his black car by sooty horses drawn,
Fair Sicily he seeks, and dreads the dawn.
Around her plains he casts his eager eyes,
And every mountain to the bottom tries;

But when in all the careful search he saw
No cause of fear, no ill-suspected flaw;
Secure from harm, and wandering on at will,
Venus beheld him from her flowery hill:
When straight the dame her little Cupid pressed
With secret rapture to her snowy breast,

And in these words the fluttering boy addressed :

She said and from his quiver straight he drew
A dart, that surely would the business do.
She guides his hand, she makes her touch the test,
And of a thousand arrows chose the best :
No feather better poised, a sharper head
None had, and sooner none, and surer sped.
He bends his bow, he draws it to his ear,
Thro' Pluto's heart it drives and fixes there.

OVID'S Metamorphoses, book 5.

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