PREFACE. Upon a subject which has occupied the thoughts, and employed the pens of our most profound thinkers, and our ablest writers, it is perhaps difficult to say much that is likely to interest the reader..... There was something very pleasing and very poetical in the thought, that each river had its nymph, and every wood its god that a visibIe power watched over even the domestic duties of the people, ready to punish a reward and that, too in a manner so strange and immediate, that it must have greatly affected their minds in stimulating to good, or deterring from evil....