By the GREEKS. 49 



" Graecis ducibus virtute et confilio celeberrimis confingi un- 

 '* quam poflit ?" 



SEVERAL ancient authors thinking it improbable that HELEN 

 was in Troy, and feeing the force of the argument againft the 

 fuppofition of her not having been there, contrived a fiction to 

 reconcile the two accounts, viz. That VENUS had created a fhape 

 or figure fo exactly like HELEN, that PARIS carried the coun- 

 terfeit* with him to Troy, believing it to be the celebrated 

 Beauty herfelf. EURIPIDES'S tragedy of HELEN turns entirely 

 upon this ; and MUSGRAVE, in his notes, conjectures, that the 

 ftory had been contrived by HELEN, in conjunction with the 

 Egyptian priefts, to re-eftablifh her character after her return to 

 Greece. It is plain, however, that, according to the Egyptian priefts 

 and HERODOTUS, HOMER has falfified the ftory in one material 

 circumftance ; if fo, it is impoflible to fay where he would flop. 



$dly, Although THUCYDIDES, in his introduction, does fup- 

 pofe the truth of the Grecian expedition againft Troy, and re- 

 fers to HOMER for feveral particulars, yet he once and again 

 enters the caveat, " if any credit is to be given to his poems." 



Lqftly> PAUSANIAS fays, in fo many words, that he gives 

 more credit to HOMER than the generality of people do. The 

 expreflion in the original f is rather ftronger ; and it is certain, 

 that feveral ancient authors, whofe works unfortunately have 

 not reached us, arraigned HOMER of falfehood, in treatifes 

 written on purpofe to convict him of it . I will not quote 

 from LUCIAN, as his levity might be objected to, but only ob- 

 ferve, that, if the common chronology be juft, he had good 

 reafon to laugh at the fuppofition of PARIS falling in love with 

 HELEN, or of her being an object of contention to Afia and 

 Greece, as it is xtemonftrable that me muft have been about an 

 hundred years of age when Troy was taken j for, according to 



g the 



* 'EiJAf. f 'o/ Aether, p. 1 60. edit. 1696. 



See an enumeration of them in the preface toPhiloftr. Heroica, p. 603. edit. 1709. 



