or Asia. They
had a real taste for antiquity; and lived at a time when some insight could
be obtained: for till the Roman Empire was fully established, and every
province in a state of tranquillity, little light could be procured from
those countries, whence the mythology of Greece was derived. The native
Helladians were very limited in their knowledge. They had taken in the
gross whatever was handed down by tradition; and assumed to themselves
every history, which was imported. They moreover held every nation but
their own as barbarous; so that their insuperable vanity rendered it
impossible for them to make any great advances in historical knowledge. But
the writers whom I just now mentioned, either had not these prejudices; or
lived at a time when they were greatly subsided. They condescended to quote
innumerable authors, and some of great antiquity; to whom the pride of
Greece would never have appealed. I had once much talk upon this subject
with a learned friend, since lost to the world, who could ill brook that
Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, should be discarded for Clemens, Origen,
or Eusebius; and that Lysias and Demosthenes should give way to Libanius
and Aristides. The name of Tzetzes, or Eustathius, he could not bear. To
all which I repeatedly made answer; that it was by no means my intention to
set aside any of the writers, he mentioned: whose merits, as far as they
extended, I held in great veneration. On the contrary, I should have
recourse to their assistance, as far as it would carry me: But I must at
the same time take upon me to weigh those merits; and see wherein they
consisted; and to what degree they were to be trusted. The Helladians were
much to be admired for the smoothness of their periods, and a happy
collocation of their terms. They shewed a great propriety of diction; and a
beautiful arrangement of their ideas: and the whole was attended with a
rhythm, and harmony, no where else to be found. But they were at the same
time under violent prejudices: and the subject matter of which they
treated, was in general so brief, and limited, that very little could be
obtained from it towards the history of other countries, or a knowledge of
antient times. Even in respect to their own affairs, whatever light had
been derived to them, was so perverted, and came through so dim a medium,
that it is difficult to make use of it to any determinate and salutary
purpose. Yet the beauty of their composition has bee