Somewhat more may be gathered concerning Varro’s _mythological_ or _theological_ works, as they were much studied, and very frequently cited by the early fathers, particularly St Augustine and Lactantius. Of these the chief is the treatise _De Cultu Deorum_, noticed by St Augustine in his seventh book, _De Civitate Dei_, where he says that Varro considers God to be not only the soul of the world, but the world itself. In this work he also treated of the origin of hydromancy, and other superstitious divinations. Sixteen books of the treatise _De Rerum Humanarum et Divinarum Antiquitatibus_, addressed to Julius Cæsar, as Pontifex Maximus, related to theological, or at least what we might call ecclesiastical subjects. He divides theology into three sorts—mythic, physical, and civil. The first is chiefly employed by poets, who have feigned many things contrary to the nature and dignity of the immortals, as that they sprung from the head, or thigh, or from drops of blood—that they committed thefts and impure actions, and were the servants of men. The second species of theology is that which we meet with in the books of philosophers, in which it is discussed, whether the gods have been from all eternity, and what is their essence, whether of fire, or numbers, or atoms. Civil, or the third kind of theology, relates to the institutions devised by men, for the worship of the Gods. The first sort is most appropriate to the stage; the second to the world; the third to the city. Varro was a zealous advocate for the physical explication of the mythological fables, to which he always had recourse, when pressed by the difficulties of their literal meaning(73). He also seems to have been of opinion that the images of the gods were originally intended to direct such as were acquainted with the secret doctrines, to the contemplation of the real gods, and of the immortal soul with its constituent parts(74). The first book of this work, as we learn from St Augustine, was introductory. The three following treated of the ministers of religion, the Pontiffs, Augurs, and Sibyls; in mentioning whom, he relates the well-known story of her who offered her volumes for sale to Tarquinius Priscus. In the next ternary of chapters, he discoursed concerning places appointed for religious worship, and the celebration of sacred rites. The third ternary related to holidays; the fourth to consecrations, and to private as well as public sacrifices; and the fifth contained an enumeration of all the deities who watch over man, from the moment when Janus opens to him the gates of life, till the dirges of Nænia conduct him to the tomb. The whole universe, he says, in conclusion, is divided into heaven and earth; the heavens, again, into æther and air; earth, into the ground and water. All these are full of souls, mortal in earth and water, but immortal in air and æther. Between the highest circle of heaven and the orbit of the moon, are the ethereal souls of the stars and planets,