honourable Place in his imaginary State. He wishes that Children might fuck in his Fables with their Milk; and, as they can never be too foon tinctured with Wifdom and Virtue, he charges Nurfes and Parents to make them learn them betimes. The fame Praifes and Encomiums are bestowed upon him by Phædrus, Plutarch, and Agathias. To mention no more, Appollonius, an excellent Judge, vaftly prefers them to all the Fables and Fictions of the Poets, which, he faith, are good for nothing, but to debauch the Morals and corrupt the Heartsof young People; and difplaying the Quarrels, Debauches, Adulteries, and Incefts of the Gods, by Degrees to reconcile their tender Minds to thofe Crimes, or at leaft bring them to think there is no great Harm and Guilt in thofe Actions, of which they have their Gods for Patterns and Examples: as the Youth in Terence, who finding fome Check upón him when he was going to commit a Crime, and offer Violence to an innocent Virgin, immediately fhakes off all his Scruples, upon feeing piter defcending upon Danae in a golden Shower and faith, Why Should I, who am but a poor weak and inconfiderable Mortal, fcruple to do a Thing which the great God Jupiter, who shakes the Hea vens with his Thunder, was not afbamed to commit? But this our wife Mythologift has carefully avoided in relation to the Gods. He does not, like Homer (as Longinus has judiciously obferved) make his Heroes in their good Qualities fuperior to his Gods, nor fink his Gods, by difplaying their Vices and Weaknesses, below his Heroes and Princes. He never mentions Jupiter, and the other Deities, without the utmoft Reverence and Refpect; and charges all Vices, Filthinefs and Cruelty upon his Beafts; to infpire Children with a greater Averfion and Horror for them:

Ha

For

For these Reasons it was, that, out of a generous Gratitude to fo great a Benefactor to Mankind, the Athenians, the great Mafters of Wisdom, Sciences, and polite Learning in the World, erected, as Phadrus relates, a Statue to his Honour, after his Death; which, as another Author * informs us, was done by no less a Hand than the famous Statuary Lyfippus, the only Artist whom Alexander the Great would permit to reprefent his Perfon; and this Statue they placed before thofe of the Seven Sages of Greece, as preferring his eafy and natural Way of conveying Virtue and Morality, to all the dry Rules and Precepts of thofe Philofophers.

These were the Notions the Ancients had of ourMythologist, but I am forry to fay he has not met with the fame favourable Treatment from the Moderns; fome of whom have ftrangely abused his Perfon, which they have reprefented as a Lump of Deformity; whilft others have wounded him in a more tender Part, by rejecting his Writings, condemning them as fpurious, and denying him to be the Author of the ufeful and entertaining Fables that go under his Name. And, firft, as to his Perfon: This is what ftrikes one immediately upon the opening of the firft Leaf of his Book, where the poor Man is fhewn with his humped Back, crooked Legs, fharp Head, and frightful Face, in the very Shape and Attitude of Therfites in Homer, from whom, I make no doubt, but the first Broacher of this filly Lye took his Hint. There poor fop is reprefented as frightful a Monster as any of the others that are generally drawn about him. There is not, perhaps, a more glaring Inftance of Falfehood in Hiftory and blind Credulity in Mankind than this: For, after all, in the Name of Senfe and Reason, upon what Ground and Authority is

* Agatheas.

this affirmed? Why, upon the Credit of a modern Author, who wrote about 300 Years ago, one Planudes, a ftupid Monk, who, among fifty. Lyes that he has retailed in his Life of Efop, has flung in this Circumftance of the Deformity of our Mythologift; which fure he must have had by a Revelation and Dream, fince 'tis certain, there is not one fingle Writer, for the Space of 2000 Years, that has made the least mention of this Particular. I know a late learned Man has imagined it was im-' plied in a Paffage of St. Jerom, who faith that Efop was unfortunate in his Birth, his Life, and tragical Death. I am not clear-fighted enough to fpy out the Uglinefs of that wife Man in the Words of this Father; fince the Meannefs of his Birth, the flavish Condition he lived in, and the tragical End which carried him out of the World, are fufficient to account for thofe Words of St. Jerom, without having Recourfe to Efop's Deformity to folve them. It may perhaps be faid, that the Silence of fome Hiftorians is no folid Proof of the Falfhood of a Fact that has been related by any fingle Writer. I own it, but at the fame tinie I believe it will be readily allowed, that an Au̟thor who ftands, alone in affirming a Story,, which for near twenty Centuries has not been mentioned by any one before him, muft be a Writer of great Credit and Weight, and of an established Character for Veracity. But, unluckily, it happens to be the Reverse here with Planudes; fince his Life of Efop (as I have already observed) is nothing but a Tiffue of Falfhoods and Lyes, a Heap of Blunders and Abfurdities, from the Beginning to the End. I could here produce many Inftances of what I fay, but that I fear it would take up too much Time, and only serve to tire and abuse the Patience

*

of the Reader Befides, I don't care to travel and wade through fuch a Heap of Rubbish. The learned Dr. Bentley has pointed out feveral of the Blunders and Mistakes of that Monk; and among others his giving the Title to Xanthus of Philofopher, a Name which was not known till long after, in the Age of Pythagoras; and his making this imaginary Philofopher attended, like Plato and Ariftotle, with Scholars, whom he calls xarxa, a Word not used in that Senfe in the Days of Aritotle himself. But this perhaps may be excufed, by faying that that Writer fpoke more patrio, according to the Manner of his Age, and the Cuftom of his Country, which gave the Names of Philofophers to their Wifemen and Teachers, and called their Difciples and Followers Scholafticks; a Licence that has been taken by feveral wife and judicious Authors. Thus we fee Virgil and Ovid make their Heroes lie upon Beds at Meals; Difcubuere Toris-firatoque fuper difcumbitur Oftro: Whereas it appears plainly, from Homer, that this Piece of Luxury was not in vogue in the Time of the Trojan Wars; for all his Heroes are reprefented in a fitting Posture. But whatever Apology can be made for fop's Biographer as to this Particular, fure no Excufe can be made for the many other Blunders he has been guilty of in that Piece; as his making his Hero travel to Babylon to the Court of King Lycerus, a Monarch in nubibus, there being no fuch King of Babylon upon Record from the Age of Nabonaflar, the firft King of that Country,

See Dr. Bentley's Differtation upon Phalaris's Epiftles.

Some learned Men have thought that thofe Places in the Old Teliament, where Mention is made of fitting on Beds at Meals; as Ezek. xxiii. 4. Thou fattest upon a flately Bed, and a Table prepared before thee; and Amos ii. 8. And lay themfelves upon foft Cloths, and drink Wine; were thus tranflated by the Septuagint Interpreters, more patrio, according to the Custom that obtained at the Time they lived in.

to

to the Time of Alexander the Great, who put an
End to that Empire; his making fop undertake
a Journey into Egypt in the Reign of Nettane-
bus, a Prince who did not come into the World
till 200 Years after him; and, laftly, to mention
no more, his putting in the Mouth of our Fabulift
an Invective against Women, out of a Play of Eu!
ripides, which was not written till above 100 Years
after the Birth of Efop.* And yet this idle and
filly Tradition of his Uglinefs has now fubfifted fome
hundred Years, and perhaps may do fo to the End
of the World; fince it is an Error in the firft Con
coction, which is always very difficult to correct;
'tis an Error which Children fuck in with their
Milk, and imbibe in their tendereft Years; 'tis
what they behold with Mirth and Pleasure in the
firft Book that is put into their Hands, and which
they blindly and implicitly believe all the reft of
their Lives. So that this Fiction of the Monk, which
is as rank a Fable, and deferves as little Credit, as
any of those written by fop himself, may fubfift
as long as the World fafts, unless fome great Artift
and judicious Painter has the Courage to explode
fuch a groundless Notion, to do Juftice to our My-
thologist, draw him in a comely and decent Man-
ner, as a wife Man and a Philofopher, and repre-
fent him in the fame Shape and Attitude as we may
fuppofe the grateful Athenians did, in the tall Statue,
which (as Phadrus relates) they erected to his Me
mory, after his Death

Efapo ingentem Statuam pofuere Attici.
Phædr. Lib. 2, Ep.

And this Particular of the Statue feems of itself

fufficient to confute the Tradition; for had

*See Mr. Bayle's Dictionary under the Article of Efop.

H 4

fop

been