67 



portance to the belief, that they were the children of Mars, 

 and under his peculiar protection. 



With respect to prose compositions, that rank under the 

 class of fiction, there is reason to think that, generally speak- 

 ing, they were unknown to the Greeks and Romans ; how- 

 ever, we hear of the Milesian, Ionian, and Sybaritic Tales, 

 and" although they have perished, we know them to have 

 been of a licentious and immoral nature; we know also, 

 that these people were remarkable for effeminacy and immo- 

 rality above all the other inhabitants of Greece or Italy. 

 There is therefore here presumptive evidence, that their man- 

 ners and morals were much influenced by fictitious writings, 

 and vice versA,. 



That the fictions of the poets contributed very much to 

 that taste and refinement which characterised the Greeks 

 more than any people that ever existed, cannot, I think, be 

 denied, especially when we consider that it is only in pro- 

 portion to his acquaintance with the writings in which these 

 fictions are found, that we are accustomed to give any man 

 the reputation of a refined and elegant scholar. It must be 

 admitted that there were other causes beside these, for th» 

 superior elegance of the Greeks, but nothing could be de- 

 vised more likely to produce it, than the machinery of the 

 poets. In a rich and beautiful country, on which nature had 

 profusely lavished her charms, it was impossible to turn 

 where some poetical fancy was not presented to the mind : 

 every meadow, and every grove abounded in its satyrs, and 



