as, for instance, in - Lovely Goddess of the bow! Lovely Goddess of the arrows! Thou who walk'st i' (in) starry heaven! Robert Browning was a great poet, but if we compare all the Italian witch-poems of, and to Diana, with the former's much admired speech of Diana-Artemis, it will certainly be admitted by impartial critics that thespells are fully equal to the following by the bard - "I am a goddess of the ambrosial courts, And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed By none whose temples whiten this the world: Through heaven I roll my lucid moon along, I shed in Hell o'er my pale people peace, On Earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek, And every feathered mother's callow brood, And all that love green haunts and loneliness." This is pretty, but it is only imitation, and neither in form or spirit really equal to the incantations, which are sincere on faith. And it may here be observed in sorrow, yet in very truth, that in a very greatnumber of modern poetical handlings of classic mythic subjects, the writershave, despite all their genius as artists, produced rococo work which will appear to be such to another generation, simply from their having missed the point, or omitted from ignorance something vital which the folk-lorist would probably not have lost. Achilles may be admirably drawn, as I have seen him, in a Louis XIV. wig with a Turkish scimitar, but still one could wish that the designer had been a little morefamiliar with Greek garments and weapons.CHAPTER XIV THE GOBLIN MESSENGERS OF DIANA AND MERCURY The following tale was not given to me as connected with the Gospel ofthe Witches, but as Diana appears in it, and as thewhole conception is that of Diana and Apollo in another form, I include it in the series. Many centuries ago there was a goblin, or spirit ...
