82 A NATURAL HISTORY 



Paradise, in Plafds Sympofiiun, \% yupiter5 Garden, and 

 alfo is the Pattern of Alcmous\ Orchards, and the Hefperides : 

 The Golden-Apples kept by a Drago?t, were the forbidden Fruit 

 in Paradife : The Fable of Hercules'^ killing the Serpent of the 

 Hefperides, is borrowed from the S;ed of the Woman, breaking 

 the Serpent's Head. 



What is Ovid's In nova fert animus F but an imperfedl 

 Tranfcript of Mojes's Journal of the Creation, Gfc. 'Tis faid by 

 Mofes, 'The Spirit of God moved on the Face of the Waters ; hence 

 ThaleSf makes Water to be the firft Principle of all natural Bodies : 

 His Reafons are deliver'd by Plutarch. Homer fays, All things 

 are made of the Ocean. The Chaos, whereof all things were 

 made, according to Hefiod, was Water. Orpheus fays, all things 

 were generated of the Ocean *. Plaids Atlanticus, what is it but 

 a Fable ? built upon Mofes s Hiftory of Noah, and the Flood, 

 and the Caufes that brought it upon the World. 



What is the Bacchus of the Heathen, but the Noah of Mo- 

 fes? formerly called Bcachus, for Noachus, as might eafily be, 

 miftaking the Heb-ew'Le.iitxs B and N, which are not very much 

 unlike. By Jayius and Saturn, Noah is meant ; and fome take 

 Jupiter to be Japhet, for tho* fovis, and the other oblique Cafes 

 are derived from fehovah, yet Jupiter is another. The Fable 

 of Heaven being ftormed by the Giants, arofe from what the 

 Builders of the Tower of Babel faid, viz. Let us build a City and 



a Toiver, ichofe Top ?nay reach ujito Heaven But no Man 



imitates the Scriptures more than Homer, who was an inquifitive 

 Traveller into all Countries. But to proceed to the Pagan Ac- 

 count of Paradife, and the Fall of Man : 



A Certain Author relates a Difcourfe between Midas 

 the Phrygian, and Silenus who was the Son of a Nymph, inferior 

 by Nature to the Gods, fuperior to Men and Death, thus : 



S IL E NUS told Midas, that Europe, Af.a., and Africa were 

 Iflands, furrounded by Water : that there was but one Continent 

 only, which was beyond this World, in which, among other 

 Rarities, were two great Rivers^ whofe Banks were covered with 

 Trees, one of them was called the River of Pleafure, and the 

 other the River oj Grief. .... 



He 



