MUSÆ, the _Muses_. This celebrated sisterhood is said to have been the daughters of Jupiter and Mnēmŏsyne. They were believed to have been born on Mount Piĕrus, and educated by Euphēme. In general they were considered as the tutelar goddesses of sacred festivals and banquets, and the patronesses of polite and useful arts. They supported virtue in distress, and preserved worthy actions from oblivion. Homer calls them superintendants and correctors of manners. In respect to the sciences, these sisters had each their separate province; though poetry seemed more immediately under their united protection. These divinities, formerly called Mosæ, were so named from a Greek word signifying _to inquire_; because, by inquiring of them, the sciences might be learnt. Others say they had their name from their resemblance, because there is a similitude, an infinity, and relation, betwixt all the sciences, in which they agree together, and are united with each other; for which reason they are often painted with their hands joined, dancing in a circle round Apollo their leader. They were represented crowned with flowers, or wreaths of palm, each holding some instrument, or emblem of the science or art over which she presided. They were depicted as in the bloom of youth; and the bird sacred to them was the swan, probably because that bird was consecrated to their sovereign Apollo. There was a fountain of the Muses near Rome, in the meadow where Numa used to meet the goddess Egeria; the care of which and of the worship paid to the Muses, was intrusted to the Vestal virgins. Their names were as follows: Clio, who presided over history. Her name is derived from κλειος, _glory_, or from κλειω, to _celebrate_. She is generally represented under the form of a young woman crowned with laurel, holding in her right hand a trumpet, and in her left a book: others describe her with a lute in one hand, and in the other a _plectrum_, or quill. Euterpe is distinguished by _tibiæ_ or pipes whence she was called also Tibīcĭna. Some say logic was invented by her. It was very common with the musicians of old to play on two pipes at once, agreeably to the remarks before Terence's plays, and as we often actually find them represented in the remains of the artists. It was over this species of music that Euterpe presided, as we learn from the first ode of Horace. Thălīa presided over comedy, and whatever was gay, amiable, and pleasant. She holds a mask in her right hand, and on medals she is represented leaning against a pillar. She was the Muse of comedy, of which they had a great mixture on the Roman stage in the earliest ages of their poetry, and long after. She is distinguished from the other Muses in general by a mask, and from Melpomĕne, the tragic Muse, by her shepherd's crook, not to speak of her look, which is meaner than that of Melpomĕne, or her dress, which is shorter, and consequently less noble, than that of any other of the Muses.