ets, a theology for use. They had
fables, and a worship, which, though founded upon fable, was yet very
different.

Diagoras, Socrates, Plato, and the philosophers of Athens, with Cicero,
their admirer, and the other pretended wise men of Rome are men by
themselves. These were the atheists with respect to the ancients. We
must not, therefore, look into Plato, or into Cicero, for the real
religion of the pagans, as distinct from the fabulous. These two authors
involve themselves in the clouds, that their opinions may not be
discovered. They durst not openly attack the real religion; but
destroyed it by attacking fable. To distinguish here, with exactness,
the agreement or difference between fable and religion, is not, at
present, my intention. It is not easy[2] to show, with exactness, what
was the Athenian notion of the nature of the gods whom they worshipped.
Plutarch himself tells us, that this was a thing very difficult for the
philosophers. It is sufficient for me that the mythology and theology of
the ancients were different at the bottom; that the names of the gods
continued the same; and that long custom gave up one to the caprices of
the poets, without supposing the other affected by them. This being once
settled upon the authority of the ancients themselves, I am no longer
surprised to see Jupiter, Minerva, Neptune, Bacchus, appear upon the
stage in the comedy of Aristophanes, and, at the same time, receiving
incense in the temples of Athens. This is, in my opinion, the most
reasonable account of a thing so obscure; and I am ready to give up my
system to any other, by which the Athenians shall be made more
consistent with themselves; those Athenians who sat laughing at the gods
of Aristophanes, while they condemned Socrates for having appeared to
despise the gods of his country.

6. THE MIMI AND PANTOMIMES.

A word is now to be spoken of the _mimi_, which had some relation to
comedy. This appellation was, by the Greeks and Romans, given to certain
dramatick performances, and to the actors that played them. The
denomination sufficiently shows, that their art consisted in imitation
and buffoonery. Of their works, nothing, or very little, is remaining;
so that they can only be considered, by the help of some passages in
authors, from which little is to be learned that deserves consideration.
I shall extract the substance, as I did with respect to the chorus,
without losing time, by defining all the different sp