Diogenes Laertius, that
Linus, the Father of Grecian Poetry, was the son of Mercury and the Muse
Urania, and that he sung of the Generation of the world, of the course
of the sun and moon, of the origin of animals, and of the principles of
vegetation[17]. He taught, says the same Author, that all things were
formed at one time, and that they were jumbled together in a Chaos, till
the operation of a Mind introduced regularity.

[Footnote 16: Authors are not agreed as to the Persons who
introduced into Greece the principles of philosophy. Tatian will
have it that the Greek Philosophy came originally from AEgypt.
Orat. con. Graec. While Laertius (who certainly might have been
better informed) will allow Foreigners to have had no share in it.
He ascribes its origin to Linus, and says expressly, +Aph' Hellenon
erxe philosophia hes kai auto to onoma ten Barbaron apestrapte
prosegorian.+ Laer. in Proem.]

[Footnote 17: This account of the subjects on which Linus wrote,
suggests a further prejudice in favour of Laertius's opinion as to
the origin of Greek Philosophy. He has preserved the first line of
his Poem.

+En pote chronos houtos en ho hama pant' epephukei.+ Id. ibid.]

After all, however, we must acknowledge, that so complex, so
diversified, and so ingenious a system as the Greek Theology, was too
much for an _uninstructed_ Genius, however exuberant, to have conceived
in its full extent. Accordingly we are told, that both Orpheus and
Museus travelled into AEgypt, and infused the traditionary learning of a
cultivated people into the minds of their own illiterate countrymen[18].
To do this the more effectually, they composed Hymns, or short sonnets,
in which their meaning was couched under the veil of beautiful allegory,
that their lessons might at once arrest the imagination, and be
impressed upon the Memory[19]. This, my Lord, we are informed by the
great Critic, was the first dress in which Poetry made its
appearance[20].

[Footnote 18: Herod. Lib. I. c. 49.]

[Footnote 19: Univ. Hist. Vol. VI. p. 221.]

[Footnote 20: +Hoi men gar semnoteroi tas kalas emimounto praxeis
kai tas ton toiouton tuchas; hoi de eutelesteroi tas ton phaulon
proton psogous poiountes, hosper heteroi HUMNOUS kai ENKOMIA.+
Arist. Poet. c. 4.]

Of Orpheus we know little more with certainty, than that the subjects of
his poems were the formation of the world, the