And this subject reminds me of Bacchus, generally. Now, my readers know that there were of old not less than ten cities known by the name of Nysa. At two of these, Nysa in India and Nysa in Ethiopia, Bacchus (Dio Nysus) was held in extreme reverence. In the last-named city, Ptolemy Philadelphus manifested his veneration for the god, by honouring the deity’s great festival after a pleasing fashion. The King had a figure of the joyous divinity made expressly for the occasion. It was eight cubits in length, and was drawn through the city, attired in a tunic of yellow and gold, with a Macedonian mantle hanging from the shoulders. The god was seated in a car, and as he passed through the gazing crowds, he ever and anon majestically arose, poured out, not wine, but milk, from a bowl, and then solemnly re-seated himself. Among the Greeks, Dædalus is famous, in legend at least, as the founder of the art of figure-making. He is said to have flourished about a thousand years before Christ; and despite what is generally told of him, he was probably but a rude craftsman. He was the first who introduced quicksilver into figures, and by this process he lent a sort of Chinese-tumbling motion to a wooden image of Venus. Some of his figures were so given to activity as to require being made fast when not wanted to move, without which precaution they would, like the leg in the legend, have continued running about without intermission. All the Greek puppets belong to the Dædalus school; they were generally of wood or baked clay, were set in motion by strings, and were invariably of the feminine gender. It was customary to place them in the coffins of young girls. M. Magnin quotes from Xenophon’s graphic description of the banquet in the house of Callias, to demonstrate that the noblest Athenians condescended to be amused with representations by puppets. There is however not a word touching puppets throughout the lively narrative of the learned and gallant Greek. The Syracusan showman therein introduced exhibits a living boy and girl, who go through some rather dangerous gymnastic exercises, which excite considerable disgust in the mind of Socrates. That sage is much better pleased when the graceful pair represent in his presence the ballet of ‘Bacchus and Ariadne.’ These children not only danced but sang; and if it be suggested that the feat of singing might easily be contrived for a puppet by a clever stage-manager, we may also suggest that the Syracusan speaks, on one occasion, in answer to Socrates, so plainly as to leave no doubt that “flesh, blood, and blue veins” entered into the composition of his elegant little slave. Antiochus Cyzenicus, half-brother to Antiochus Grypus—the huge-nosed Antiochus—was celebrated as the inventor of puppets as well as of larger machines; and his counterfeit animals, whose limbs simulated motion, were as agreeable to his friends, as his engines, with unpronounceable names, were horridly distasteful to his enemies.