22 UNIVERSAL ERUDITION. 



flod and Homer, and of whom Eufebius has pre- 

 ferred confiderable fragments. From thence it 

 paftes to the theogony of the Egyptians, of 

 whom Tbot or T'kaut, the founder of that nation, 

 was likewife, they fay, their firft hiftorian, that 

 Sanchoniathon even copied from him ; and of 

 whom we find many relations in the Greek hif- 

 torians, efpecially in Hercdotus,Diodorus Siculus, 

 and in Eufebius of Cjefarea. It then examines 

 the theogony of the Atlantides, who dwelt on 

 the weftern part of Africa, and of whom Diodo- 

 rus alone has preferved any account. From 

 thence it proceeds to the theogony of the Greeks, 

 which is far better known to us, as we find ac- 

 counts of it, more or lefs particular, in number- 

 lefs Greek and Latin writers. This theogony 

 had the fame foundation as that of the Romans -, 

 the latter having only extended it by adding to 

 the Greek divinities certain gods or demi-gods, 

 formed of their heroes, and certain fymbolic 

 and allegoric divinities, which mythology ex- 

 plains at the fame time ; and it is on this oc- 

 cafion, that it enters into a particular explication 

 of the cofmogony and theogony of Ovid ; whofe 

 book of metamorphofes contains as copious de- 

 fcriptions as we could defire of the fable of the 

 ancients : what was their belief concerning the 

 habitations of the blefied after their death, or 

 of the Elyfian fields , as well as of their hell or 

 Tartarus , of the dog Cerberus , of the ferryman 

 Charon ; of the Furies , of the four rivers, Cocy- 

 tus, Lethe, Phlcgethon and Styx, which water the 



Tartarian 



