246 ON THE GODS OF GREECE, 



Wild and obfcure as thefe ancient verfes muft appear 

 in a naked verbal tranflation. it will perhaps be thought 

 by many, that the poetry or mythology of Greece and 

 Italy afford no conceptions more awfully magnificent : 

 yet the brevity and iimplicity of the Mofaick di6tion are 

 unequalled. 



As to the creation of the world, in the opinion of the 

 Romans, Ovid, who might naturally have been expected 

 to defcribc it with learning and elegance, leaves us 

 wholly in the dark, which of the Gods was the aclor in it. 

 Other mythologiits are more explicit ; and we may rely 

 on the authority of Comutus, that the old European 

 heathens confidered Jove (not the fon of Saturn, but 

 of the Ether, that is, of an unknown parent) as the 

 great Life-giver, and Father of Gods and Men : to 

 which may be added the Orphean doctrine, preferved 

 by Proclus, that " the abyfs and empyreum, the earth 

 64 and fea, the Gods and Goddeffes, were produced by 

 M Zeus, or Jupiter." In this character he correfponds 

 with Brahma j and, perhaps, with that God of the Ba- 

 bylonians, (if we can rely on the accounts of their an- 

 cient religion,) who, like Brahma, reduced theuniverfe 

 to order, and, like Brahma, loft his head 9 \tith the blood 

 of which new animals were initantly formed. I allude 

 to the common ftory, the meaning of which I cannot 

 difcover, that Brahma had five heads, till one of them 

 was cut off by Nardydn. 



That, in another capacity, Jove was the Helper and 

 Suppor er of all, we may collect from his old Latin 

 epithets, and from Cicero, who informs us, that his 

 ulual name is a contraction of Jnvans Pater ; an ety- 

 mology which lbews the idea entertained of his charac- 

 ter, though we may have fome doubt of its accuracy. 

 Callimachus, we know, addreffes him as the beftower of 

 alig< od, and of fecurity from grief ; and, fince neither 

 wealth without virtue, not virtue without wealth, give 

 % complete 



