dhere to the better side. As in these instances:--

The gods, my son, deceive poor men oft-times.
ANS. 'Tis easy, sir, on God to lay our crimes.

'Tis comfort to thee to be rich, is't not!
ANS. No, sir, 'tis bad to be a wealthy sot.

Die rather than such toilsome pains to take.
ANS. To call God's service toil's a foul mistake.

Such contrarieties as these are easily solved, if (as I said) we teach
youth to judge aright and to give the better saying preference. But if
we chance to meet with any absurd passages without any others at their
heels to confute them, we are then to overthrow them with such others
as elsewhere are to be found in the same author. Nor must we be offended
with the poet or grieved at him, but only at the speeches themselves,
which he utters either according to the vulgar manner of speaking or, it
may be, but in drollery. So, when thou readest in Homer of gods thrown
out of heaven headlong one by another, or gods wounded by men and
quarrelling and brawling with each other, thou mayest readily, if thou
wilt, say to him,--

Sure thy invention here was sorely out,
Or thou hadst said far better things, no doubt;
("Iliad," viii. 358.)

yea, and thou dost so elsewhere, and according as thou thinkest, to wit,
in these passages of thine:--

The gods, removed from all that men doth grieve,
A quiet and contented life do live.

Herein the immortal gods forever blest
Feel endless joys and undisturbed rest.

The gods, who have themselves no cause to grieve,
For wretched man a web of sorrow weave.
(Ibid. vi. 138; "Odyssey," vi. 46; "Iliad," xxiv, 526.)

For these argue sound and true opinions of the gods; but those other
were only feigned to raise passions in men. Again, when Euripides speaks
at this rate,--

The gods are better than we men by far,
And yet by them we oft deceived are,--

may do well to quote him elsewhere against himself where he says
better,--

If gods do wrong, surely no gods there are.

So also, when Pindar, saith bitterly and keenly,

No law forbids us anything to do,
Whereby a mischief may befall a foe,

tell him: But, Pindar, thou thyself sayest elsewhere,

The pleasure which injurious acts attends
Always in bitter consequences ends.

And when Sophocles speaks thus,

Sweet is the gain, wherein to lie and cheat
Adds the repute of wit to what we get,

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