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a century afterwards ; yet, as I do not like to fuppofe an author, 

 clrcumflanced like Herodotus both in antiquity and in charadler, 

 guilty of an opinion abfurdly erroneous, and conlequently do 

 not like to difTent from him in a matter, of which he mufl 

 have been a much more competent judge than the moft learned 

 antiquarian of the prefent age, I Ihould wifh, if poflible, to 

 difcover fome fuch fenfe of his words as might reconcile his 

 opinion with what is evidently the truth, and might clear him 

 from the fufpicion of abfurdity, an impu ration which, from 

 the general tenor of his writings, he fo little deferves. In order 

 to this I fliall endeavour to fliew that, by the words of our 

 author, it is not neceffary he fliould be underftood to mean 

 that Hefiod and Homer were the inventors, or even the firft 

 importers, of Grecian theology ; but only that before their 

 time, and previous to their writings, the Greeks pofTefled no 

 regular fyflem of that fcience, which was by them regulated, 

 amplified and improved in all its feveral branches. 



And firft, we are told by Herodotus that thefe ^otts formed 

 a theogony for the Greeks. The word Troiyia-xvle; may perhaps be 

 conftrued to mean *, as in fome inftances it does, not that a 

 theogony was originally framed by them, but that they were 

 the firft who poetized upon this fubjed, or who gave to the 

 Greeks a fyftem of theogony in verfe. But, to take the word 

 in its more obvious acceptation, the affertion can mean no 



more 



♦ Vide Stephani Thefaur. Art. ■xma. 



