PREFACE.
In finishing Zóphiël, the writer has endeavoured to adhere entirely to that belief (once prevalent among the fathers of the Greek and Roman churches), which supposes that the oracles of antiquity were delivered by dæmons or fallen angels, who wandered about the earth, formed attachments to such mortals as pleased them best, and caused themselves, in many places, to be adored as divinities.
In endeavouring to give authority for the incidents of the story, all quotations from the sacred writings have been scrupulously avoided; and the beings introduced are to be considered only as Phoebus, Zephyr, &c. under other names.
Most of the systems of ancient philosophy, either Western or Oriental, suppose beings similar to the angels of the fathers, and differ from the Mosaic account only in
