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them in their temples; and openly renounced all allegiance to them^[1].

To ascribe the origin and fabric of the universe to these imperfect beings never enters into the imagination of any polytheist or idolater. Hesiod, whose writings, along with those of Homer, contained the canonical system of the heathens^[2]; Hesiod, I say, supposes gods and men to have sprung equally from the unknown powers of nature^[3]. And thro' the whole theogony of that author, Pandora is the only instance of creation or a voluntary production; and she too was formed by the gods merely from despight to Prometheus, who had furnished men with stolen fire from the celestial regions^[4]. The ancient mythologists, indeed, seem throughout to have rather embraced the idea of generation than that of creation, or formation; and to have thence accounted for the origin of this universe.

Ovid, who lived in a learned age, and had been instructed by philosophers in the principles of a

1. Id. in vita Cal. cap. 5.
2. Herodot. lib. ii. Lucian. Jupiter confutatus, de luctu, Saturn. &c.
3. Ως ομιθεν γεγαασι θεοι θνητοι τ' ανθρωποι. Hes. Opera & Dies, l. 108.
4. Theog. l. 570.

divine