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The docility, and even affection, of the serpent, is sufficiently known and attested. Some chemical arts might have been used to give the scales of these their scarlet color, surrounded as they were by beings of such exquisite skill. Little serpents, however, of a bright glossy scarlet, are not uncommon in America; and (if the Count de Buffon, and his admirer and frequent translator Dr. Goldsmith, are to be relied on) the snake, as long as it lives, continues to increase, having no fixed dimensions allotted to it like other animals. These most pleasing writers (if I am not much mistaken) believe also that no particular bound is set to its vitality, and that it is capable of retaining life and youth so long as it can be preserved from accidents.

The following account of the celebrated exploit of Prometheus, which M. de Lentier puts into the mouth of an old Grecian or Assyrian mariner, may not be unentertaining:—

Prometheus, having made a statue of clay, mixed with it levin of gall, flesh of the aspic, and foam of the lion. But the figure was still an insensible mass. Prometheus stole fire from the sun, and man was animated. Scarcely had he drawn a breath ere he complained to the gods of the fatal gift of life: pain was his first sensation. Jupiter, to console him, and mitigate his sufferings, gave him a drug that had the virtue of restoring youth. The man was delighted with the present, and placed it on an ass for the purpose of conveying it to his own abode.

The beast, tormented with thirst, stopped on his way at a fountain guarded by a serpent. The wicked reptile would not suffer him to drink, except on condition that the drug should meanwhile be left in its care. The ass consented, and the serpent kept the drug. From that time the serpent has had power to renew its youth, while poor human beings grow old without remedy.