5

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S8
THE HISTORY
fable, tho' ever so gross, was generally receiv'd in
a religion; the learned being asham'd of such an
absurdity, yet not daring openly to explode any
thing wherein the priests found their account, explain'd
it away by emblems and allegories importing
a reasonable meaning, of which the fii'st authors
never thought: and if the learned on the
other hand, either to procure the greater veneration
for their dictates, or the better to conceal their
sentiments from the profane vulgar, did poetically
discourse of the elements and qualities of matter,
of the constellations or the planets, and the like
effects of nature, veiling them as persons ; the common
sort immediately took them for so many persons
in good earnest, and render'd 'em divine worship
under such forms as the priests judg'd fittest
to represent them. Objects of divine worship
have been coin'd out of ,the rhetorical flights of
orators, or the flattering addresses of panegyrists
even metaphors and epithets have been transform'd
into gods, which procur'd mony for the priests as
well as the best;
and this by so much the more,
as such objects were multiply'd. This is the unavoidable
consequence of deviating ever so little
from plain truth, which is never so heartily and
highly reverenc'd, as when appearing in her native
simplicity ; for as soon as her genuine beauties
are indeavour'd to be heightened by borrow'd ornaments,
and that she's
put under a disguise in
gorgeous apparel: she quickly becomes, like