PART of a LETTER то SIR EVERARD FAWKENER. **** BUT is it poffible the Hurry of a Court, and the Duty of of two fuch Places, fhould leave you a Moment's Leifure to bestow upon Literature---? If they do, may this come to your Hands at the lucky Hour, when, difengaged and easy, you can afford to liften to the old Story I am just going to tell you. 'That FABLE was the firft • Form in which Religion, Law, and Philofophy (united originally) appeared in the World; that the an< cient Fables, as we now read and underftand A 3 derstand them, convey no fuch Knowledge: that confequently they are not understood: that therefore learned • Men have had Recourfe to feveral ingenious but clafbing Schemes to explain them; while fome will have all the GODS of Antiquity to be deified "Heroes; fome, to be Jewish Patriarchs; others, to be the firft Egyptian Kings; • others, to be emblematical Figures, like Sign-Pofts, in the fame Country; ' and a late well-meaning Writer has even difcovered them to be Types of our modern Divinity." To decypher then thefe obfcure Remains, and trace this loft Stream of ancient Wisdom to its real Source, is the Aim of the following LETTERS, Some of them having been writ to a young Gentleman of great Parts, but in a wrong Purfuit of Happiness, has Spread an Air of Pleafantry thro' the Whole; which I am apt to think will be be no Difadvantage. The unnatural Separation of Learning from Life, has done infinite Harm to both. "Twere indeed pity a Treatife fhould be less inftructive that it fmile; or lefs entertaining that it lay open ancient Wif dom, canvass folemn Rites, and explore the Receffes of the myfterious E A ST. Several familiar humorous Terms have efcaped in the Revifal of the first fix Letters, which tho' very pardonable in private Correspondence, will yet require Some Grains of Allowance from the Public: Nor ought we to lofe Sight of the original Design of thefe Letters, which is, 'To explain the religious 'Opinions of the ANCIENTS, and 'their confequent Practice: If that be accomplished, no matter whether thefe Opinions were true, or fuch as a purer Religion, and improved Science have fince fhewn us to be without Foundation. The Fable, for Inftance, of the Death of ADONIS, proceeds upon a A 4 Miftake; Miftake; that of the Birth of SATURn upon Truth: And fo Men of your Candour will judge of the reft. " FROM fuch, the Difficulty of this Attempt will procure an eafy Pardon of Errors fcarcely to be avoided in fo various and abftrufe a Research: And both the Difficulty and Dignity of fuch a Subject as the firft RELIGION and PHILOSOPHY of the Lords and Lawgivers of the World, will be my beft Apology for making this Work a Proof of my Difcernment in Men, while I publish the particular Affection, and unfeigned Attachment taken to Sir EVERARD FAWKENER, by IT'S AUTHOR. IV. Caricatures of Faces, and corresponding Characters. V. Foundation of Phyfiognomy, from Ariftotle, Polemo, VII. Explication of the Plate prefixed to the firft Section VIII. Explication of the Plate prefixed to the fecond Sec- tion. Added A Tranflation of Orpheus's Hymn to IX. |