ned from the light, and would not be undeceived. Those who, like
Euemerus and Ephorus, had the courage to dissent from their legends, were
deemed atheists and apostates, and treated accordingly. Plutarch more than
once insists that it is expedient to veil the truth, and to dress it up in
[526]allegory. They went so far as to deem inquiry a [527]crime, and thus
precluded the only means by which the truth could be obtained.

Nor did these prejudices appear only in respect to their own rites and
theology, and the history of their own nation: the accounts which they gave
of other countries were always tinctured with this predominant vanity. An
idle zeal made them attribute to their forefathers the merit of many great
performances to which they were utterly strangers: and supposed them to
have founded cities in various parts of the world where the name of Greece
could not have been known; cities which were in being before Greece was a
state. Wherever they got footing, or even a transient acquaintance, they in
their descriptions accommodated every thing to their own preconceptions;
and expressed all terms according to their own mode of writing and
pronunciation, that appearances might be in their favour. To this were
added a thousand silly stories to support their pretended claim. They would
persuade us that Jason of Greece founded the empire of the Medes; as
Perseus, of the same country, did that of the Persians. Armenus, a
companion of Jason, was the reputed father of the Armenians. They gave out
that Tarsus, one of the most antient cities in the world, was built by
people from [528]Argos; and that Pelusium of Egypt had a name of Grecian
[529]original. They, too, built Sais, in the same [530]country: and the
city of the Sun, styled Heliopolis, owed its origin to an [531]Athenian.
They were so weak as to think that the city Canobus had its name from a
pilot of Menelaus, and that even Memphis was built by Epaphos of
[532]Argos. There surely was never any nation so incurious and indifferent
about truth. Hence have arisen those contradictions and inconsistences with
which their history is [533]embarrassed.

It may appear ungracious, and I am sure it is far from a pleasing task to
point out blemishes in a people of so refined a turn as the Grecians, whose
ingenuity and elegance have been admired for ages. Nor would I engage in a
display of this kind, were it not necessary to shew their prejudices and
mistakes, in order to remedy