r
76
Proofs o/ the Enquiry into
Sect. Posture of Vomiting, and all thesucceeding Poets XI. on their Knees around him, lapping up the t-""v"-J Stream from his Mouth. There is not indeed any Part of his Works that has not been borrowed, in one Shape or other, by his Successors : His Descriptions, Metaphors, Epithets and Characters have all been copied, and perpetual Allusions are made to them throughout the most cele brated Compositions of Antiquity : This has been particularly the Fate of his Wonders ; those mi raculous Tales he tells in the Odyssey, which, by some sort of poetical Magic, attract every Poet's Pen, and make him do Homage to their Author. Which of the inspired Train has not payed his Resoects to Circe and the Syrens ? and what Reader has not been amused with Ulyjses's Voyage to Hell f Scylla and Charybdis have passed into a common Proverb, and the Lejlrygons and Cimmerians are settled Similies of Darkness and Cruelty. To search into the Rise of these miraculous Relations must be curious and entertaining; and Success in that Search must either be expected from considering the Names of the Places and Persons described ; or from the Circumstances of the Story it self. By tracing them in this manner, they appear to be wholly PHENICIAN; so that Homer must have received them from that hardy advent'rous People, the greatest Navigators then in theWorld. Thus the Name of the Cimmerians, a People
said