Rhapsodists, in Antiquity, persons who made a business of singing pieces of Homer's poems.

(A) Avatar means the descent of the deity in his capacity of preserver. The three first of these descents relate to some stupendous convulsion of our globe from the fountains of the deep, and the fourth exhibits the miraculous punishment of pride and impiety, appearing to refer to the deluge. Three of the others were ordained for the overthrow of tyrants or giants. Of these Avatars, we have mentioned in the text that Rama is the eighth; Buddha, who appears to have been a reformer of the doctrines contained in Vedas, is the ninth: the tenth Avatar, we are told, is yet to come, and is expected to appear mounted (like the crowned conqueror in the Apocalypse) on a white horse, with a scimitar blazing like a comet, to mow down all incorrigible and impenitent offenders who shall then be on the earth.