260 "Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them." Job xxvi. 6-8. 261 "Swift from his throne the infernal monarch ran, All pale and trembling, lest the race of man, Slain by Jove's wrath, and led by Hermes' rod, Should fill (a countless throng!) his dark abode." Merrick's Tryphiodorus, vi. 769, sqq. 262 These words seem to imply the old belief, that the Fates might be delayed, but never wholly set aside. 263 It was anciently believed that it was dangerous, if not fatal, to behold a deity. See Exod. xxxiii. 20; Judg. xiii. 22. 264 "Ere Ilium and the Trojan tow'rs arose, In humble vales they built their soft abodes." Dryden's Virgil, iii. 150. 265 --_Along the level seas._ Compare Virgil's description of Camilla, who "Outstripp'd the winds in speed upon the plain, Flew o'er the field, nor hurt the bearded grain: She swept the seas, and, as she skimm'd along, Her flying feet unbathed on billows hung." Dryden, vii. 1100. 266 --_The future father._ "Ćneas and Antenor stand distinguished from the other Trojans by a dissatisfaction with Priam, and a sympathy with the Greeks, which is by Sophocles and others construed as treacherous collusion,--a suspicion indirectly glanced at, though emphatically repelled, in the Ćneas of Virgil."--Grote, i. p. 427. 267 Neptune thus recounts his services to Ćneas: "When your Ćneas fought, but fought with odds Of force unequal, and unequal gods: I spread a cloud before the victor's sight, Sustain'd the vanquish'd, and secure