n deference, to the disputants on _Vortigern_; who
will, doubtless, engage in it, as a matter of great importance, and,
once more, lay the world under _very heavy_ obligations, with
various _Pamphlets in folio_, upon the subject:--and, surely, too
many acknowledgments cannot be given to men who are so indefatigably
generous in their researches, that half the result of them, when
publish'd, causes even the sympathetick reader to labour as much as
the Writer!

How ungratefully did Pope say!

"There, dim in clouds, the poring Scholiasts mark,
Wits, who, like owls, see only in the dark;
A lumber-house of books in every head;
For ever reading, never to be read!"--_Dunciad_.

[7] If the Knight knew the aptness, in its full extent, of his oath,
upon this occasion, we must give him more credit for his reading
than we are willing to allow to military men of the age in which he
flourish'd;--for, observe: he vows to _cudgel_ a man lurking to
_rob_ his Lady of her virtue, in a _bower_;--how appropriately,
therefore, does he swear by the _God of the Gardens_! who is
represented with a kind of _cudgel_ (_falx lignea_) in his right
hand; and is, moreover, furnished with another weapon of formidable
dimensions, (Horace calls it _Palus_) for the express purpose of
annoying _Robbers_.

"_Fures dextra coercet,
Obscaenoque ruber porrectus ab inguine_ PALUS."

It must be confess'd that the last mention'd attribute of this Deity
was stretch'd forth to promote pleasure in some instances, instead
of fear;--for it was a sportive custom, in the hilarity of recent
marriages, to seat the Bride upon his _Palus_;--but this
circumstance by no means disproves its efficacy as a dread to
Robbers; on the contrary, that implement must have been peculiarly
terrifick, which could sustain the weight of so many Brides, without
detriment to its firmness, or elasticity.

[8] There is a terrible jumble in Somnus's family. He was the son of
Nox, by Erebus;--and Erebus, according to different accounts, was
not only Nox's husband, but her brother,--and even her son, by
Chaos;--and Mors was daughter of Somnus, by that devil of a Goddess
Nox, the mother of his father and himself!--The heathen Deities held
our canonical notions in utter contempt; and must have laugh'd