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whence ancient times are full of their fables, their allegories, 

 and their similes. From this source arise the symbol of 

 Pythagoras, the enigmas of Sphinx, and the fables of ^Esop. 

 Nay, the apophthegms of the ancient sages were usually 

 demonstrated by similitudes. And as hieroglyphics preceded 

 letters, so parables preceded arguments ; and the force of para- 

 bles ever was and ever will be great, as being clearer than argu- 

 ments, and more apposite than real examples. 



The other use of allegorical poetry is to envelop things, whose 

 dignity deserves a veil; as when the secrets and mysteries of 

 religion, policy, and philosophy, are wrapped up in fables and 

 parables. But though some may doubt whether there be any 

 mystical sense concealed in the ancient fables of the poets, we 

 cannot but think there is a latent mystery intended in some 

 of them : for we do not, therefore, judge contemptibly of 

 them, because they are commonly left to children and gram- 

 marians ; but as the writings that relate these fables are, next 

 to the sacred ones, the most ancient, and the fables themselves 

 much older still, being not delivered as the inventions of the 

 writers, but as things before believed and received, they appear 

 like a soft whisper from the traditions of more ancient nations, 

 conveyed through the flutes of the Grecians. But all hitherto 

 attempted towards the interpretation of these parables proving 

 unsatisfactory to us, as having proceeded from men of but com- 

 mon-place learning, we set down the philosophy of ancient 

 fables as the only deficiency in poetry. But lest any person 

 should imagine that any of these deficiencies are rather notional 

 than real, and that we, like augurs, only measure countries in 

 our mind, and know not how to invade them, we will proceed to 

 subjoin examples of the work we recommend. These shall be 

 three in number one taken from natural philosophy, one from 

 politics, and another from morals. 



PAN, OR NATURE 

 Explained of Natural Philosophy 



" The ancients have, with great exactness, delineated universal nat- 

 ure under the person of Pan. They leave his origin doubtful : some 

 asserting him the son of Mercury, and others the common offspring of 

 all Penelope's suitors. The latter supposition doubtless occasioned some 

 later writers to entitle this ancient fable, Penelope a thing frequently 



