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violent, as the Scythians esteemed it a sacred duty to revenge all injuries, especially those offered to their relations and country. He had no other view, according to them, in running through so many distant kingdoms; and in establishing with so much zeal his sanguinary doctrines, but to spirit up all nations against so formidable and odious a power. This leven, which he left in the bosoms of the northern people, fermented a long time in secret; but the signal, they add, once given, they all fell as it were by common consent upon this unhappy empire; and after many repeated shocks, intirely overturned it; thereby revenging the affront offered so many ages before to their founder.
I cannot prevail on myself to raise objections against so ingenious a supposition. It gives so much importance to the history of the North, it renders that of all Europe so interesting, and, if I may use the expression, so poetical, that I cannot but admit these advantages as so many proofs in its favour. It must after all be confessed, that we can discover nothing very certain concerning Odin, but only this that he was the founder of a new Religion, before unknown to the rude and artless inhabitants of Scandinavia. I will not answer for the truth of the account given of his original:
