In this compartment there are two trees, whose branches spread over the figures, one of them has smoother leaves like some evergreens, and might thence be supposed to have some allusion to immortality, but they may perhaps have been designed only as ornaments, or to relieve the figures, or because it was in groves, where these mysteries were originally celebrated. Thus Homer speaks of the woods of Proserpine, and mentions many trees in Tartarus, as presenting their fruits to Tantalus; Virgil speaks of the pleasant groves of Elysium; and in Spence's Polymetis there are prints of two antient gems, one of Orpheus charming Cerberus with his lyre, and the other of Hercules binding him in a cord, each of them standing by a tree. Polymet. p. 284. As however these trees have all different foliage so clearly marked by the artist, they may have had specific meanings in the exhibitions of the mysteries, which have not reached posterity, of this kind seem to have been the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life, in sacred writ, both which must have been emblematic or allegorical. The masks, hanging to the handles of the vase, seem to indicate that there is a concealed meaning in the figures besides their general appearance. And the priestess at the bottom, which I come now to describe, seems to shew this concealed meaning to be of the sacred or Eleusinian kind. 3. The figure on the bottom of the vase is on a larger scale than the others, and less finely finished, and less elevated, and as this bottom part was afterwards cemented to the upper part, it might be executed by another artist for the sake of expedition, but there seems no reason to suppose that it was not originally designed for the upper part of it as some have conjectured. As the mysteries of Ceres were celebrated by female priests, for Porphyrius says the antients called the priestesses of Ceres, Melissai, or bees, which were emblems of chastity. Div. Leg. Vol. I. p. 235. And as, in his Satire against the sex, Juvenal says, that few women are worthy to be priestesses of Ceres. Sat. VI. the figure at the bottom of the vase would seem to represent a PRIESTESS or HIEROPHANT, whose office it was to introduce the initiated, and point out to them, and explain the exhibitions in the mysteries, and to exclude the uninitiated, calling out to them, "Far, far retire, ye profane!" and to guard the secrets of the temple. Thus the introductory hymn sung by the hierophant, according to Eusebius, begins, "I will declare a secret to the initiated, but let the doors be shut against the profane." Div. Leg. Vol. I. p. 177. The priestess or hierophant appears in this figure with a close hood, and dressed in linen, which fits close about her; except a light cloak, which flutters in the wind. Wool, as taken from slaughtered animals, was esteemed profane by the priests of Aegypt, who were always dressed in linen. Apuleus, p. 64. Div. Leg. Vol. I. p. 318. Thus Eli made for Samuel a linen ephod.