Hesiod, little has survived to attest its literary greatness: yet there have been handed down to us some few theological and historical fragments of the deepest interest to the antiquarian.

The second, the classic age of Greece, after an interval of several centuries, is ushered in with the philosophical speculations of Thales and Pythagoras: and the writings of Herodotus take up the history of the world, where it was left by his cotemporary Nehemiah, the last of the inspired historians. It was a period in which philosophy, and every art, and almost every kind of polished literature, reached an unequalled eminence, and in which the theological speculations of many of its philosophers soared above the gross materialism of preceding times: but it was an age remarkable for the ignorance of its learned in every thing connected with mythological and antiquarian research.

With the promulgation of Christianity

commences another era: and whether we regard the Greeks, as a nation, embracing the doctrines of the gospel, or opposing it by the systems of the later Platonists, it is an era in their literature, as well as in their theology, completely new. The light which broke forth with the promulgation of the gospel was preceded in some degree by the publication of the Septuagint: and the attention of many a learned antiquarian was turned to explore the history of their countries, and to develope the theological signification of the strange legends, which were still held sacred over so large a portion of the earth. The fragments, however, which lay before the antiquarian of that day, were too much broken to present to him the entire system of heathen theology; and the want of sufficient data disabled him from tracing the connexion, which he justly presumed must have originally existed between those legends and the sacred records.

The connecting links in that broken chain, of which the many learned antiquarians of Greece, who flourished in the early ages of the Church, stood so much in need, have in our own times been supplied by two very singular discoveries. The first of these, the interpretation of the Hieroglyphics, lays the undisguised historic records of Egypt in juxta-position with the Hebrew scriptures: and this will eventually fix the history of the world by means of the authentic archives of two of its most celebrated nations; and at the same time has given us another key to the interpretation of the mythology of the ancients. The other discovery has been supplied from India, where heathenism, flourishing in all its parts and vigour, is still cultivated amongst a people under our own dominion, where it has been preserved by an uninterrupted priesthood, who still possess, and in a great measure understand, its ancient volumes, and to whom

we may still have recourse for explanation.

At first sight the Mythological fragments of antiquity present to us a mass of confusion. Upon a closer examination, however, we find in them all certain features in which they correspond, and we may observe also certain differences, peculiar to itself, in which each nation varies from all others. By rejecting these differences, and retaining the points of resemblance, by thus collating the different systems, and extending this induction to all the fragments within our reach, we may extract the original and fundamental tenets of their mythology: and we may likewise in some degree ascertain how much of that truth, which was subsequently propagated by Christianity, had been revealed to the patriarchs of old.

The most remarkable feature in the heathen theology is the multiplicity of

its gods. The easy temper of polytheism, as it has been called, hesitated not to adopt the divinities of the surrounding nations; while the deification, not only of heroes and kings, but of the virtues and vices, with`the genii of the woods and waters, mountains and cities, contributed to introduce new and strange inmates into the Pantheon. But if we eject these modern intruders, if we restore to their original seats the imported deities, such as Pan to Arcadia, Hermes to Egypt, Hercules to Tyre, and Dionysus to India; and if we investigate the origin of each, we shall find every nation, notwithstanding the variety of names, acknowledging the same deities, and the same system of theology: and, however humble any of the deities may appear in the Pantheons of Greece and Rome, each, who has any claim to antiquity, will be found ultimately, if not immediately, resolvable into one or other

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