xiii.
might appear a difference of religion among nations who all maintained, at the bottom, one common creed; and this will account for whatever disagreement is remarked between the ancient writers, in their descriptions of the Gods of the ancient Germans: it will also account for whatever difference may appear between the imperfect relations of the Roman historians, and the full display of the Gothic mythology, held forth in the Edda of Sæmund. It is indeed very probable, that only the first rudiments of the Gothic religion had begun to be formed, when the Germans were first known to the Romans: and when the Saxons made their irruptions into Britain, though they had the same general belief concerning Odin, Thor, Frigga, &c, yet probably the complete system had not arrived to the full maturity it
