Alas! alas! They raised ghosts, and they raised tempests; they scolded, and they thundered; they drank nectar, and drove doves: but when anything serious was to be done--when a battle was to be decided, or an empire overthrown, they were frequently as powerless to slay or to save as the sceptre which they wielded or the cloud which they bestrode. Let us call before us some of the most formidable, and examine into their pretensions to Olympus. Come down, then, Jupiter, from the little pedestal on which I have placed your plaster effigy! Come down, father of men and gods, counsel-giving, wide-thundering, cloud-compelling! Come down, thou who overthrowest the Titans and abusest thy wife; thou who art so fond of the voice of prayer and the smoke of hecatombs; thou who hast so many epithets and so many sons; thou who governest Olympus and meritest Bridewell! Where are thy frowns and thy nods? thy muscles and thy sinews? thy darts and thy decrees? Where are the looks which appal--the blows which destroy? Where is the unbroken chain--the insatiable vulture? Where are the Cyclopes who forge the lightning, and the poets who forge the Cyclopes? Alas! Jupiter, amidst all thy terrors, in heaven or on Ida, in feasting or in wrath, in poetry or in prose, thou wert a quack, Jupiter, a most contemptible quack; so utterly destitute of everything that could ensure respect; so miserably deficient in everything that could inspire fear; such a pitiful compound of ignorance and knowledge, of strength and imbecility, of vanity and vice--that if the days of thy sovereignty could return again--if thou couldst again be fed upon sacrifice and flattery, I swear by thine own beard I would as soon be an Irus as a Jupiter.