CRITIQUE UPON THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE ANCIENTS. THE earliest antiquity lies buried in silence and oblivion, excepting the remains we have of it in sacred writ. This silence was succeeded by poetical fables; and these, at length, by the writings we now enjoy: so that the concealed and secret learning of the ancients, seems separated from the history and knowledge of the following ages, by a veil, or partitionwall of fables, interposing between the things that are lost, and those that remain. * Many may imagine that I am here entering upon a work of fancy, or amusement; and design to use a poetical liberty, in explaining poetical fables. It is true, fables in general are composed of ductile matter, that may be drawn into great variety, by a witty tulent, or an inventive genius: und be delivered of plausible meanings which they never contained. But this procedure has already been carried to excess: and great numbers, to procure the sanction of antiquity to their own notions and inventions, have miserably wrested and abused the fables of the ancients. * Varro distributes the ages of the world into three periods; viz. the unknown, the fabulous, and the historical. Of the former we have no accounts but in scripture ; for the second, we must consult the ancient poets; such as Hesiod, Homer, or those who wrote still earlier; and then again come back to Ovid, who in his metamorphoses, seems in imitation, perhaps, of some anci ent Greek poet, to have intended a complete collection, or a kind of continued and connected history of the fabulous age; especially with regard to changes, revolutions, or transformations. |