are now in force among feveral governments that have embraced the reformed religion. But, becaufe a fubject of this nature may be too ferious for my ordinary readers, who are very apt to throw by my Papers when they are not enlivened with fomething that is diverting or uncommon, I fhall here publifh the contents of a little manufcript lately fallen into my hands, and which pretends to great antiquity; though, by reafon of fome modern phrafes and other particulars in it, I can by no means allow it to be genuine, but rather the production of a modern fophift.

It is well known by the learned, that there was a temple upon Mount Etna dedicated to Vulcan, which was guarded by dogs of fo exquifite a fmell, fay the hiftorians, that they could difcern whether the perfons who came thither were chafte or otherwife. They used to meet and fawn upon fuch who were chaíte, careffing them as the friends of their master Vulcan; but flew at thofe who were polluted, and never ceased barking at them till they had driven them from the temple.

My manufcript gives the following account of thefe dogs, and was probably defigned as a comment upon this ftory.

Thefe dogs were given to Vulcan by his fifter Diana, the goddefs of hunting and of chastity, having bred them out of fome of ' her hounds, in which the had obferved this • natural instinct and fagacity. It was thought fhe did it in fpite to Venus, who, upon her

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return home, always found her husband in a good or bad humour, according to the reception which fhe met with from his dogs. They lived in the temple feveral years, but were fuch fnappish curs that they frighted away most of the votaries. The women of Sicily made a folemn deputation to the priest, by which they acquainted him, that they would not come up to the temple with their • annual offerings unless he muzzled his mastiffs, and at last compromised the matter with him, that the offering fhould always be brought by a chorus of young girls, who were none of them above seven years old. 'was wonderful, fays the author, to fee how • different the treatment was which the dogs gave to thefe little miffes, from that which they had fhewn to their mothers. It is faid that the prince of Syracufe, having married a young lady, and being naturally of a jealous temper, made fuch an interest with the priests of this temple, that he procured a whelp • from them of this curious breed. The young puppy was very troublesome to the fair lady at firft, infomuch that fhe folicited her hufband to fend him away; but the good man cut her fhort with the old Sicilian proverb, "Love me, love my dog.' From which time fhe lived very peaceably with both of them. The ladies of Syracufe were very much annoyed with him, and feveral of very good reputation refused to come to court until he was difcarded. There were indeed fome of ⚫ them

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⚫ them that defied his fagacity; but it was ob'ferved, though he did not actually bite them, he would growl at them moft confoundedly. To return to the dogs of the temple; after they had lived here in great repute for several years, it fo happened, that as one of the priefts, who had been making a charitable ⚫ vifit to a widow who lived on the promontory ' of Lilybeum, returned home pretty late in the evening, the dogs flew at him with fo much fury, that they would have worried him if his brethren had not come in to his affiftance; upon which, fays my author, the dogs were all of them hanged, as having loft their original instinct.'

I cannot conclude this Paper without wifhing that we had fome of this breed of dogs in Great-Britain, which would certainly do juftice, I fhould fay honour, to the ladies of our country, and fhew the world the difference between pagan women and those who are inftructed in founder principles of virtue and religion. *

* BY ADDISON, on the authority of Mr. Tho. Tickell, who has afcertained ADDISON's Papers in this eighth volume, in which the Papers were not distinguished by fignatures, or lettered at the end as in the other volumes. It does not clearly appear that STEELE was concerned in this volume.

N° 580. Friday, Auguft 13, 1714.

Si verbo audacia detur,

Non metuam magni dixiffe palatia cæli.

OVID. Met. i. 175.

This place, the brightest manfion of the sky,
I'll call the Palace of the Deity.'

• SIR,

I

DRYDEN.

Confidered in my two last letters* that awful and tremendous fubject, the ubiquity or omniprefence of the Divine Being. I have fhewn that he is equally prefent in all places throughout the whole extent of infinite fpace. This doctrine is fo agreeable to reafon, that we meet with it in the writings of ⚫ the enlightened heathens, as I might fhew at large, were it not already done by other hands. But though the Deity be thus effentially • prefent through all the immenfity of space, there is one part of it in which he discovers himfelf in a moft tranfcendent and visible glory; this is that place which is marked out in fcripture under the different appellations • of Paradise, the third Heaven, the Throne "of God, and the Habitation of his Glory.' It is here where the glorified body of our Saviour refides, and where all the celeftial hierarchies, and the innumerable hofts of angels, are re

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* See No. 565, No. 571, No. 590, and No. 628.

prefented as perpetually furrounding the feat of GOD with hallelujahs and hymns of praife. This is that prefence of GOD which fome of the divines call his glorious, and others his majestic, prefence. He is indeed as He is indeed as effentially prefent in all other places as in this; but it is here where he refides in a fenfible magnificence, and in the midst of all those splendours 'which can affect the imagination of created beings.

It is very remarkable that this opinion of GOD Almighty's prefence in Heaven, whether difcovered by the light of nature, or by ⚫ a general tradition from our firft parents, prevails among all the nations of the world, whatsoever different notions they entertain of the Godhead. If you look into Homer, the moft ancient of the Greek writers, you fee the Supreme Power feated in the heavens, and encompaffed with inferior deities, among • whom the Mufes are reprefented as finging inceffantly about his throne. Who does not here fee the main ftrokes and outlines of this great truth we are fpeaking of? The fame doctrine is fhadowed out in many other heathen authors, though at the fame time, like feveral other revealed truths, dafhed and adul6 terated with a mixture of fables and human ⚫ inventions. But to pafs over the notions of the Greeks and Romans, thofe more enlight⚫ened parts of the Pagan world, we find there is fcarce a people among the late-difcovered nations who are not trained up in an opinion that • Heaven

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