* 3 8 PREFACE. 
was made in the fpeculations of men, which ap- 
pears in the poet’s words, and that they were ea- 
fily induced to think, that the furprifing fore- 
fight of birds, as to the time of migration, in- 
dicated fomething of a divine nature in them ; 
which opinion Virgil, as an Epicurean, thinks fit 
to enter his protefl againft ; when he fays. 
Hand equidem credo quia fit divinitus illts 
Ingenium . 
But to return to Ariflophanes. The firfl part 
of the chorus from whence the afore-cited paf- 
fage is taken, feems with all its wildnefs to con- 
tain the fabulous cant, which the augurs made 
ufe of in order to account for their impudent 
impofitions on mankind. It fets out with a cof- 
mogony, and fays, that in the begining were 
Chaos, and Night, and Erebus, and Tartarus. 
That there was neither water, nor air, nor fky ; 
that Night laid an egg, from whence, after a 
time, Love arofe. That Love, in conjunction 
with Erebus, produced the bird kind, and that 
they were the firft of the immortal race, &c. 
With this paffage in Ariflophanes, the account 
of the oracle of Dodona feems to agree. This 
oracle was the oldefl in Greece, and there a dove 
prophefied, according to the concurrent tefti- 
mony of hiflory ; but according to the explica- 
tion of Herodotus, this ftrange opinion arofe from 
hence, that the Theban prieflefs, who was flolen 
by the Phoenicians, and carried into Greece, was 
called a dove , becaufe being a barbarian, fhe 
feemed to the Dodoneans to chatter like a bird, 
till ilie had learned the Greek language, and then 
flie was faid to fpeak with a human voice. This 
expli- 
