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Some CONSIDERATIONS on a CONTROVERTED 

 PASSAGE of HERODOTUS. By the Right Honourable 

 the Earl of CHARLEMONT, Freftdent of the Royal Irijh 

 Academy and F. R. S. 



tsran 



JlaOW far the prevailing mode of philofophic fceptlclfm may Readjuly 7, 

 or may not have benefited mankind I will not pretend to 

 determine, it being fufficient for my purpofe that its prevalence 

 be allowed. Neither does this fafhionable wifdom content itfelf 

 with the higher ranges of philofophical enquiry : it defcends 

 even to criticifm and hiftorical refearches ; and the modern 

 wife man, deeming it below his dignity to follow thofe ancient 

 guides by whom our forefathers have, perhaps too implicitly, 

 been led, and prefuming on his own fagacity, fets up his bold 

 guefs againft the relations of authors almoft contemporary with 

 the fadls they have afferted, and delights in proving, or endea- 

 vouring to prove, that he is more profoundly flcilled in the 

 knowledge of antiquity than the ancients themfelves. There is 

 perhaps no author who has fufFered more from this critical pre- 



[ A 2 ] fumption 



