PENCIL

Penatibus populi Romani" was consumed, along with other very ancient temples, in the great fire during the reign of Nero. But the term may, perhaps, be considered as belonging to the rhetorical style of that author, and to signify merely the tutelary god of the republic. The subject of the domestic deities of the Romans, the Lares and Penates, is involved in great obscurity, from the conflicting statements of the cla ic authors respecting them. Those who wish to see the question investigated in all its bearings may consult Mailer's Etruscatis, vol. ii. p. 90. .; Jaelcel, De Diis Domestic is; Hartnng, Religion der Romer, . (See also the notes by Prof. Ramsay of Glasgow, appended to liis valuable little worli entitled Elegiac Extracts frimi Tibullus and Ovid, with English Introductions and Notes, 12mo. 1840.) [s. 919]