"Sani being among the astrologers of India, as well as with their sapient brethren of Europe, a planet of malignant aspects, the ill-omened raven may be deemed a fit _Vahan_ for such a dreaded being. But this is not, I think, a sufficient reason for the conspicuous introduction of the raven into the mythological machinery of the Hindu system, so accurate, so connected, and so complete in all its parts; although the investigations that it hath hitherto undergone have not fully developed or reached such points {248} of perfection. Now let me ask the reason, why, both in England and in India, the raven it so rare a bird? It breeds every year, like the crow, and is much longer lived; and while the latter bird abounds every where, to a degree bordering on nuisance, a pair of ravens, for they are seldom seen singly or in trios, are scarcely found duplicated in any place. Perhaps, take England or India over, two pair of ravens will not be found, on an average, in the extent of five hundred or a thousand acres. I know not, for I write where I have no access to books, if our naturalists have sought the theory of this; or whether it may have first occurred to me, which it did while contemplating the character and attributes of Sani, that the raven destroys its young; and if this notion be well founded, and on no other can I account for the rareness of the annual-breeding long-lived raven, we shall at once see the propriety of symbolizing it with Saturn, or Kronos, or Time, devouring or destroying his own offspring.--MOOR's _Hindu Pantheon_, p. 311. _A thousand eyes were quench'd in endless night,_ _To form that magic globe._--XI. p. 117. A similar invention occurs in Dr. Beaumont's Psyche, one of the most extraordinary poems in our language. I am far from claiming any merit for such inventions, which {249} no man can value more cheaply,--but such as it is, I am not beholden for it to this forgotten writer, whose strange, long, but by no means uninteresting work I had never read till after two editions of Kehama were printed. A stately mirror's all-enamell'd case The second was; no crystal ever yet Smil'd with such pureness: never ladies' glass Its owner flattered with so smooth a cheat. Nor could Narcissus' fount with such delight Into his fair destruction him invite. For He in that and self-love being drown'd, Agenor from him pluck'd his doting eyes: And, shuffled in her fragments, having found Old Jezabels, he stole the dog's due prize. Goliah's staring bacins too he got, Which he with Pharaoh's all together put. But not content with these, from Phaeton, From Joab, Icarus, Nebuchadnezzar, From Philip and his world-devouring son, From Sylla, Cataline, Tully, Pompey, Cæsar, From Herod, Cleopatra, and Sejanus, From Agrippina and Domitianus, {250}