name was Zagreus, and the rites of this worship were peculiarly solemn and earnest. This same idea was incorporated in the Egyptian story of Osiris, a god identical with Bacchus, not in specific origin, but in the far higher sense of representing the same powers of nature, springing from the same human sentiments, and meeting the same human needs. This identity, easily discerned when the two nations came in contact, led to the mystic doctrines of the Orphic philosophers, of which we shall say a word presently. The myth of Adonis, too, was, as I have already said, only another expression of the same natural fact. This was very wide-spread, and enjoyed a high popularity.

This is the point at which the religion of Dionysus touches that of Demeter; for the rape of Proserpine (Persephone, daughter of Demeter) is another form in which the fact of the sleep of nature in winter was symbolically clothed. The worship of Demeter, in its orgiastic form, was not nearly so general as that of Dionysus. It possessed, too, a more sober development and a higher character. As the religious passion, uncontrolled by reason, found its expression in Bacchanalian rites, so the equally natural leaning of the human mind to the occult and mystic connected itself with the service of Demeter. The Eleusinian mysteries were sacred to Demeter, Dionysus, and Kora (Persephone), and in them this mysticism was developed into a religious philosophy, the highest, perhaps, of which the Grecian polytheism was capable. What these mysteries were, and what the occult doctrines taught in them, cannot now be known with any exactness. Enough, however, can be gathered from the allusions of poets and philosophers to show that their character was high, and their influence good. It is an excellent illustration of the elasticity of polytheism, and of the ease with which its deities passed into each other's spheres and assumed each other's attributes, - or, it would be more correct to say, the readiness with which attributes were assigned to the representative now of one phase of nature, now of another, -that this orgiastic character was not confined to the worship of the Chthonian deities, even including Cybele. The Lemnian worship of Hephæstos (Vulcan) was of the same character, and the Cretan Zeus was the object of services entirely analogous.

It was easy for one tribe to assign to the god of the atmosphere the same characteristics which another assigned to the god of the vine. In Latium indeed Jupiter was distinctively the god of the vine; and it was not until the Italians came in contact with Greek mythology that they identified Bacchus with their own Liber, who had originally a quite different sphere and character.

The seventh and sixth centuries before Christ were peculiarly a period when a new religious need was felt, and this new stimulus of the worship of Dionysus and Demeter was welcomed. It was a period of disorder and despondency, like the one just preceding the Protestant Reformation; the old era had passed away, and the new-that of the glory of Greecewas not yet come. The oppression, sorrow, and sacrilege of this time called for a religious remedy no less than a political one; so Epimenides preceded Solon, purification and religious impulse went before the lawgiver. The Orphic philosophy was a part of this same movement. "It was immediately allied with magic," says Hartung, and it was intrinsically Oriental in its nature. "Not without reason did the Egyptian priests maintain that Orpheus had learned and derived everything from them." But here I touch upon the progress of the religious faith of the Greeks in historical times, while my plan confines me to its mythical history. It was, perhaps, permissible to overstep the limit in regard to this single event, because it is directly analogous to the earlier impulse which founded the worship of Dionysus and Demeter.

I have thus sketched the relations of the Greek mythology to the Greek religion, sufficiently, perhaps, to show the direction in which Mr. Cox's Manual needs to be complemented. If I had undertaken to follow out the line of inquiry which I have suggested, it would have led to a full discussion of the sentiments, opinions, and usages of the heroic times; for in those times everything was based upon religion. Every year new knowledge is acquired in regard to the primitive religious ideas of the Aryan race, and a further and more detailed treatment of the subject may very well be deferred until a future day.

W. F. ALLEN.

ART. IV. -1. Public Health. Reports of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council. 1858-1867. 10 vols. 8vo.

2. Twentieth Annual Report of the Poor Law Board. 18671868.

8vo.

3. First Report of the Commissioners on the Employment of Children, Young Persons, and Women, in Agriculture. With Appendix. Part I. Appendix, Part II., to First Report. 1868. 2 vols. fol.

In a speech at an agricultural dinner in Shrewsbury, on the 16th of January last, Lord Granville, a member of the present ministry, speaking in a characteristic vein of cheerful optimism, said:

"He had known England during a political life extending over thirty years. He had seen the country ruled by different ministers; he had seen different parties in power; he had seen it not insensible to the occurrence of great and portentous events in other parts of the world; he had seen it suffering from adversé elements, and from a deficient season of harvest; and yet during the whole of that time it had appeared to him that England, of which they were all so proud, had been increasing in all that constitutes the greatness of an empire. Its wealth had been greatly increased, the level of general intelligence had been raised, the manners of the people softened, and the hostile feeling between class and class had been done away with."*

Such a state of society as is here depicted appears eminently satisfactory, but another and very different view of the social condition of England is presented by Mr. Goschen, the President of the Poor Law Board, in a speech of the 21st of December last, on his re-election to Parliament after taking office. He said:

"I have been called to fill an arduous and responsible office. I do not disguise from myself the full weight of that responsibility. Constantly increasing rates, constantly increasing pauperism, millions of money spent, yet without satisfaction, and, infinitely worse, millions of human beings whose very name implies a degradation even in their own eyes, as recipients of parochial relief, such is the subject-matter with which a President of the Poor Law Board is called upon to deal.

* Report in the Daily News, January 18, 1869.

His sphere is on the dark side of our social system. His province is what I may call the bankruptcy of the million, and it appears to me that the Poor Law, like the Bankruptcy Law, can never give complete satisfaction, because both deal with something deplorable in itself. The utmost we can expect to obtain is to make the best of a bad job. I hope and believe that much may be done to grapple more effectually with that which is a growing evil, for I must speak of a growing evil when we have to face the terrible fact that, in the short space of two years, the pauperism of the metropolis has increased twenty per cent, and that not less than 30,000 paupers * a number equal to the population of a good-sized town who, I might almost say, are closing in upon the industrious portions of certain districts of London, till the ratepayer of to-day himself becomes the pauper of to-morrow." †

have been added to the numbers of those

No one will accuse Mr. Goschen of exaggeration, but the condition of society indicated by his words is one that may well be called not only deplorable, but alarming. A large portion of the people of England live in poverty so great as to be always on the verge of pauperism. A majority of the working class, in one of the most industrious and richest countries of the world, are habitually underfed, badly housed, and insufficiently clothed. The increase of wealth, of which Lord Granville speaks, is accompanied by an increase of poverty, with its concomitants of suffering, pauperism, ignorance, immorality, and crime. The efforts of the government through the poorlaw organization, the efforts of individuals through multitudinous private charities, are ineffectual to prevent the growth of this national malady. The source of the evil is not affected by them.

The question of the issue of this condition of things is of interest not to England alone, but to all civilized nations alike. It is not merely that the fact of the mass of a people falling into such a state is a discredit to the principles upon which modern society is organized, but also that such wide-spread poverty and ignorance produce moral and economic effects

* From the returns of the Poor Law Board, it appears that in the first week of April, 1869, there were in the unions and parishes of London 147,086 paupers, in the proportion of 36,464 in-door to 110,622 out-door. This was an increase of 1,549 upon the numbers of the corresponding period of last year, of 6,297 upon those of 1867, and of 42,753 upon those of 1866.

Report in the Times, December 22, 1868.

which are not confined in their operation to the limits of the country in which they have their origin. Whatever threatens or injures the moral advance and material prosperity of one of the leading nations of the world threatens and injures those of all others in a greater or less degree.

According to the census tables of 1861, the total population of England and Wales amounted to just over twenty millions of persons (20,066,000). Of these a little less than half (9,289,000) were persons either possessing independent incomes or earning wages; the remainder, principally of course women and children, were dependent on the others.* The increase of population since 1861 may be safely estimated at not less than one per cent annually (the total increase during the preceding decade was twelve per cent), so that at the present time there are probably somewhat less than ten millions of persons in England and Wales who have an income derived from capital, or directly from labor, and somewhat less than twelve million without incomes, dependent on the others.†

Now of the ten million in England and Wales who are in receipt of income or wages, it appears from an examination of the census tables that about one fifth are persons with independent incomes, and about four fifths in receipt of wages.

one em

The population of England and Wales, then, may be roughly divided — and when dealing with such large numbers a rough estimate or division is all that is required to afford safe ground for correct inferences-into two great sections, bracing the aristocracy, the professional and commercial classes, the wealthy and well off, the salaried, persons of independent means of whatever name, who amount, including their wives and children, to about five millions; the other embracing all manual laborers, all persons dependent on their wages for livelihood, with their wives and children, all paupers and criminals, and all persons without any recognized means of support, amounting altogether to about seventeen millions.

Such being the approximate general distribution of the popu

* No note need be taken of 151,000 persons concerning whose position nothing was ascertained.

The same proportion holds good if we take the numbers for the whole of Great Britain and Ireland; that is, there are a little more than five persons with income or wages to every six persons without income throughout the whole kingdom.