Hell than to hunt after Riches? Plutus is faid to be lame: Ah! how do Rich Men limp when they go to give Alms, how flow their Motion! What difmal Grimaces attend their Acts of Charity! Plutus was blind; and what Rich Man can fee the Wants of his poor Neighbours? How purblind are they to Merit! and how few Rich Men can fee any Folly or Defects in themselves! Plutus was very Injudicious; the Picture of a Rich Man! who paffeth by good Men, and heaps his Favours on the Bad and Undeferving.. Pluius was timorous, fo are all Rich Men; they are continually in a Panic, and watch their Treafures with the utmoft Care and Fear.

The Centaurs were antient People of Theffaly The Fable of near Mount Pelion, who firft broke Horfes for the Centaurs War; the ignorant Country People seeing them explain'd. at a Distance on Horfeback, fuppofed they were

(both Horfe and Man) but one Creature; whence the Fable before mention'd.

The Fable of the Monster Geryon's having As also that three Bodies, is thus to be understood. Geryon of Geryon. was, in antient Times, a King of the three Spanish Ilands call'd Balearides: Or elfe thus ; from the Unity there was between the three Brethren of that Name, who ruled fo lovingly together, that they all three feem'd to have but ene Soul.

By the Hellish Monfters Harpies and Gorgons, Harpies, Gor&c. are to be understood the black and devilish Arts gons, &c. and Practices of Lewd and Vicious Women; who moraliz'd. having caft off all Shame, Molefty, and Grace, appear in their Affections, Paffions, and Actions as monftrous and deform'd as the infernal Inhabitants now mention'd.

The Chimara is a Fiction deriv'd from a Vol- The Fiction of cano or Mountain of Lycia which cafts out Fire: the Chimera For on the Top thereof Lions harbour'd; Goats explain'd. in

Tantalus the

in and about the Middle, where there was much Pafture, and the Bottom thereof abounded with Serpents; and because Bellerophon made this Mountain habitable, he was faid to flay the Chimera.

TANTALUS was defign'd to reprefent a Emblem of a Mifer; for like him they live in the Midft of Mifer. Plenty, but enjoy it not. 'Tis peculiar to them to starve in a continual Feaft; to famifh amidit full Barrels, and to freeze by the Fire-fide.

The Story of
Orpheus and
Amphion mo-
raliz'd.

ORPHEUS and AMPHION are faid to be fo very fkilful in Mufic, that the first play'd on his Harp and fung fo fweetly, that he tamed wild Beafts, ftay'd the Course of Rivers, and made the Woods follow him; and that by the Melody of the latter, the Stones moved fo regularly, that they form'd the Wall of the City of Thebes. The Moral of all which is this, That Orpheus and Amphion were both Men fo cloquent, that they perfuaded thofe who lived favage Lives, like the wild Beafts, before, to embrace the Rules and Manners of Civil Society. The Fiction of ATLAS is faid by the Poets to have born Atlas, whence the World on his Shoulders; which Fiction arofe hence, that Atlas, an antient King of Mauritania in Africa, first invented the Science of Aftronomy, and reduced the Motions of the Heavenly Bodies to fome Degree of Certainty and Regularity, which were all before unknown.

The Fable of
Hesperus.

HESPERUS was the Brother of Atlas, who alfo ftudied Aftronomy, and frequently went up Mount Atlas (fo nam'd of his Brother) to view the Stars: At laft he went up and came down no more; at this the People imagin'd that he was carried to Heaven, and became the Evening and Morning Star, call'd Hesperus (or Vefper) and Phofphorus, or Lucifer.

THE

THE Hefperides were three Daughters of The Gardens of Hefperus, by Name Egle, Aretbuja, Hefperethufa; the Hefperides and 'tis faid in their Gardens Trees were planted the Garden of the fame with which bore Golden Fruit; thefe Trees were Eden. guarded by a watchful Dragon, which at laft Hercules kill'd and carried away the Golden Apples. The Ground of this Fable is supposed to be the Garden of Eden, and the forbidden Tree of Knowledge, and Tree of Life, the Trees which bare the Golden Fruit.

PROMETHEUS, the Son of Iapetus, is The Fiction of said to have made a Man of Clay or Earth, and Prometheus afterwards to fteal Fire from Heaven, in order and Pandora therewith to put Life and Soul into his Man; Creation of applied to the this Theft fo difpleas'd Jupiter that he fent Pan- Adam and dora into the World to Prometheus with a Box, Eve, and the from which, when open'd by her Husband Epi- Fall of Man. metheus, there flew out all Sorts of Evils and Difeafes which have pefter'd Mankind ever since. And afterwards Prometheus was chain'd to Mount Caucafus, and an Eagle perpetually prey'd on his Liver, as a farther Punishment of his Impiety. As to the Moral of all this, I think his making a Man of Clay may allude to the Creation of Adam out of the Duft of the Earth: And that Pandora (who alfo was made by Vulcan at Jupiter's Command, and whom every Deity adorn'd with various Gifts, Minerva giving her Wisdom, Venus Beauty, Apollo Mufic, Mercury Eloquence, &c. I fay this Pandora) was Eve, who, to be fure, before the Fall poffefs'd all the Heavenly Graces and Endowments poffible, but by her Tranfgreffion (the Fatal Box) the open'd the Way for all the fubfequent Evils and Mifchiefs in the World.

DEUCALION (the Son of Prometheus) and Deucalion's his Wife Pyrrha are faid to reign in Theffaly Deluge was when a Deluge happen'd fo great that it over- Noan's Flood.

flow'd

Iphigenia is
Jeptha's
Daughter.

flow'd the Earth, and destroyed all Mankind, excepting only Deucalion and his Wife Pyrrha, who were carried in a little Ship upon Mount Parnaffus; and when the Waters abated, they confulted the Oracle of Themis, to know how Mankind might be again reftored; the Anfwer was, They fhould caft the Bones of their Great Mos ther behind them, (ì. e. the Stones of the Earth;) accordingly they did fo, and from thefe Stones fprang a New Race of Men and Women. All which, 'tis very evident, is but a Poetical Metamorphofs of Noah's Flood, and fome of its most confiderable Circumftances.

IPHIGENIA was the Daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemneftra; her Father by chance kill'd a Stag of Diana's, who in Revenge ftopt the Paffage of his Fleet with contrary Winds, and the Oracle told them, that Diana would not be appeas'd, unless fome of Agamemnon's Blood were facrificed. Whereupon Ulyffes got Iphigenia from her Mother by Craft; but as fhe ftood by the Allar at Aulis, ready to be facrificed, Diana pitied her, and put a Hind in her stead; and made her one of her Priefteffes, who folemnized her Sacrifices with human Blood. And now how plainly does this appear to be the Scripture Hiftory of Jeptha's Daughter, under the Difguife of Poetical Fiction, and fome fabulous Accommodations.

The Fable of
PHAETON was the Son of Sol and Clymene;
Phaeton cari- he requested of his Father Phebus to drive the
onfly applied. Chariot of the Sun for one Day: He granted it,

but warn'd him of the Danger thereof: Phaeton,
careless of any future Event, mounts the Chariot,
the Fiery Horfes drove furiously thro' the Hea-
vens, and their Driver not able to govern them,
let the Reins go, and had like to have fet the
whole World on Fire; to prevent which Jupiter

ftruck

ftruck him with a Thunder-bolt, fo that he fell into the River Eridanus, now call'd the Po. His Sifters were turn'd into Poplar Trees, and wept for him with Tears of Amber on the fame Ri

ver's Banks. Some think this Phaeton was Phut To Phut Son of the third Son of Cham, who was fkill'd in Aftro- Cham. nomy, and therefore call'd the Son of Sol; and that he foretold the great Conflagrations in Italy and Ethiopia, which happen'd An. Mundi 2426. Others fay, this Fable had its Origin from the Hiftory of Elijah, who was taken up into Hea- To Elijah. ven in a Chariot and Horfes of Fire. Others think To the Burning it refers to the Deftruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, of Sodom,&c. &c. by Fire and Brimstone rain'd from Heaven.

And lastly, 'Tis fuppofed the Moral is levell'd The Moral at ambitious and inconfiderate Princes, and Prime thereof. Ministers, who, uncapable of the high and weighty Charge they have taken on them, let loofe the Reins of their indifcrete Government, and thus fet the Subjects all in a Combustion, and endanger their own Downfal. Such a Phaeton fell upon the River Thames, and fet England in Flames, not an Age fince.

NISUS was a King of the Megarenfes, and The Fable of had a Purple-colour'd or Golden Lock of Hair Nifus and bis Daughter, the among the reft on his Head; on this Lock of fame with Hair the Fortune of his Kingdom depended. His Sampfon and Daughter Scylla fell in Love with Minos, who Delilah. besieged her Father in Megara; and cutting off her Father's Golden Lock, the gave it to Minos, and with it the Kingdom; whereupon Nifus died with Grief, and was turn'd into an Hawk, and his Daughter into a Lark. Whence the Antipathy between these two Birds ever fince. The whole of this Fable is undoubtedly grounded on the Scripture Relation of Sampfon and his Mistress Delilah; with a little Variation allowable to the Poets. NARCISSUS

K