[ 4^ ] 



With refpcdl to Melampus, he is indeed mentioned In the 

 ■15th book of the OdyfTey, verfe 225; but I cannot fee how 

 it appears from that paflage that he was a poet. The name 

 of this very ancient perfonage is mentioned upon the foUov/- 

 ing occafion : — Theoclymenus, having killed one of his own 

 tribe, and being purfued as a murderer, conjures Telemachus 

 to fave him from the impending danger by receiving him 

 on board his fiiip. This Theoclymenus was a foothfayer, 

 Mm^ic, and was, as the poet informs us, by a long genealogy, 

 lineally defcended from Melampus ; of whom, however, nothing 

 is faid which can convey the flightefl hint refpeding his 

 profeffion. The hiftory of this ancient fage is well known — 

 Bayle, article Melampus, gives a full account of every thing 

 that has been faid of him by ancient writers. He, as well 

 us his defcendant, was a foothliiyer or prophet, and a great 

 phyfician, in which lad charatSler he is principally illuftrious ; 

 but no writer of antiquity gives the moft remote hint of his 

 having been a poet. The phyficians of the early ages were 

 ufually foothfayers ; their vocation was accounted holy ; and 

 religious ceremonies, or exorcifms, went hand in hand with 

 the pradice of medicine. Virgil, in his third Georgic, men- 

 tions this Melampus, but certainly not as a bard : 



cefTere magiftri 



I'hylirides Chiron, z^mathceontufque Melampus. 



It feems indeed to be fuppofed by many that every pro- 

 feflional man of remote antiquity, who is recorded with tlil- 



tincflion 



