‘Say nothing to Tiresias,’ said old Saturn, who was half in love with his fair friend, ‘and we will steal upon them unperceived.’ So saying, the god struck the earth with his cane, and there instantly sprang forth a convenient car, built of curiously carved cedar, and borne by four enormous tawny-coloured owls. Seating himself by the side of the delighted Proserpine, Saturn commanded the owls to bear them to the Valley of Lamentations. ‘Twas an easy fly: the chariot soon descended upon the crest of a hill: and Saturn and Proserpine, leaving the car, commenced, by a winding path, the slight ascent of a superior elevation. Having arrived there, they looked down upon a valley, apparently land-locked by black and barren mountains of the most strange, although picturesque forms. In the centre of the valley was a black pool or tarn, bordered with dark purple flags of an immense size, twining and twisting among which might be observed the glancing and gliding folds of several white serpents; while crocodiles and alligators, and other horrible forms, poked their foul snouts with evident delight in a vast mass of black slime, which had, at various times, exuded from the lake. A single tree only was to be observed in this desolate place, an enormous and blasted cedar, with scarcely a patch of verdure, but extending its black and barren branches nearly across the valley. Seated on a loosened crag, but leaning against the trunk of the cedar, with his arms folded, his mighty eyes fixed on the ground, and his legs crossed with that air of complete repose which indicates that their owner is in no hurry again to move them, was ‘A form, some granite god we deemed, Or king of palmy Nile, colossal shapes Such as Syene’s rosy quarries yield To Memphian art; Horus, Osiris called, Or Amenoph, who, on the Theban plain, With magic melody the sun salutes; Or he, far mightier, to whose conquering car Monarchs were yoked, Rameses: by the Greeks Sesostris styled. And yet no sculptor’s art Moulded this shape, for form it seemed of flesh, Yet motionless; its dim unlustrous orbs Gazing in stilly vacancy, its cheek Grey as its hairs, which, thin as they might seem, No breath disturbed; a solemn countenance, Not sorrowful, though full of woe sublime, As if despair were now a distant dream Too dim for memory.’ ‘‘Tis their great leader,’ said Saturn, as he pointed out the Titan to Proserpine, ‘the giant Enceladus. He got us into all our scrapes, but I must do him the justice to add, that he is the only one who can ever get us out of them. They say he has no heart; but I think his hook nose is rather fine.’ ‘Superb!’ said Proserpine. ‘And who is that radiant and golden-haired youth who is seated at his feet?’