On the Theogony. 43 



We must consider it as one of the motives, which may tend to give to 

 inquiries like the present, into these aberrations of the human mind, an 

 interest far higher in tlie eye of the Christian student than that of mere 

 curiosity, that they forcibly demonstrate to us the necessity of revelation, 

 to enlighten a world ' which by its own wisdom knew not God ;' and serve to 

 convince us, that nothing less than a real revelation could have preserved 

 among a single people — and that a people comparatively uninformed in 

 other departments of knowledge, a religious system of so excellent purity 

 and truth, while so thick a veil was cast over the face of every other nation; 

 so that it seemed as if a light from heaven beamed freely on the Goshen of 

 Israel, while all around was Egyptian darkness. It is surely with much 

 judgment, that Eusel)ius, throughout his 'Evangelical Preparation,' employs 

 arguments drawn from this source. Nor can our classical studies be ever 

 applied to a better purpose, than when they are thus made the means of 

 impressing on our minds their need of a better wisdom from above. 



After these preliminary remarks, suggested by the general nature of the 

 subject, we may now proceed to the critical examination of the particular 

 poem. Although it is interesting as containing much fancy, many beautiful 

 fictions and picturesque descriptions, conveyed in a style distinguished bv 

 great sweetness and ease of language ; yet it should not be dissembled, that 

 it is at the same time marked by the greatest inequality of composition. 

 The incongruities of matter and inconsistency of style are often so great, 

 as to have afforded fair grounds to the German critics Wolf and Herman, 

 for their belief, that we do not possess in the Theogony, as it at present 

 stands, any single original body of poetry, but a mere compilation of vari- 

 ous fragments relating to similar mythological subjects, digested together 

 by those minstrels of patchwork strains, pairTtav eweuv S.oicot, the rliapso- 

 dists. Others, however, may be more inclined to attribute these discre- 

 pancies, when they relate to the matter, to the great confusion which, as 

 we have already seen, generally pervades the systems of Mythology ; and 

 when they relate to style, to the rude and inartificial structure which usu- 

 ally marks the poetry of an early age. But whatever conclusion we may 

 adopt in this respect, we must at all events allow that tiie Theogony of 

 Hesiod, as it at present stands, is as remote as possible from the form and 

 constitution of an exact and regular poem. In many passages, as, for in- 

 stance, in his catalogues of the rivers and their nymphs, the poet presents 

 us with nothing beyond a dry and unadorned list of names j and occasion- 

 ally, even where the subject would ap|)car to open the most inviting field 

 for poetical amplification and embellishment, he confines iiimself within 



fihould tolerate no licentious paintings ; firjQiv fir/rt ayaXfin fiijTt ypacpijv uvai tolu- 

 Tbiv TTfia^fwv iiiixiimv' ti fiti TTupa Tim Ouhq toihtoiq, oig Kui tov TuOaa^ov aTroSiduxriv 

 "o j/o/ioc. " Nor should there be any statue or painting, representing actions of this 

 kind ; unles» in the templeH of certain gntls of mich a character, to ivhom the law itself 

 aUoux an obncene service." 



