65 



ing no other standard to direct their fancies, were obliged to 

 enlarge the idea of some human creature, and at the same 

 time that they magnified his virtues, could not avoid magni- 

 fying also his vices. Hence, we are presented with the most 

 disgusting representations of every kind of vice in the ac- 

 tions of the heathen divinities. It is not the furies with their 

 snakes, or the abominable harpies that excite our abhor- 

 rence; no, it is the great God, that wields the thunder-bolt, 

 and at whose nod the earth trembles ! when we behold him, 

 exerting his omnipotence for the purpose of gratifying the 

 most disgraceful passions, and for the perpetration of the 

 most shocking crimes ; — it is the goddess of beauty, whose 

 magical charms awaken love and admiration in the bosoms 

 of gods and men ; when we behold her, instead of present- 

 ing those modest charms, ^nd that chaste deportment, which 

 give to beauty its highest perfection, displaying the wanton 

 and indelicate manners of an abandoned courtesan. We may 

 learn from a passage in Terence, how great encouragement to 

 dissoluteness those fictions were, in which was depicted the 

 immoral conduct of the gods : for we find a young man de- 

 claring with what greater willingness he was induced to com- 

 mit a crime, when accidentally reminded, that he Avas au- 

 thoFised by the example of the great God himself. 



" At quem Deutft ? qui templa coeli summa sonitu conciitit. 



Ego homuncio hoc non faceremt ego illud vero ita feci, ac lubens." 



VOL. XIII. K 



