me had wrought a great change. They explained every
thing by the language in use, without the least retrospect or allowance:
and all names and titles from other countries were liable to the same rule.
If the name were dissonant, and disagreeable to their ear, it was rejected
as barbarous: but if it were at all similar in sound to any word in their
language, they changed it to that word; though the name were of Syriac
original; or introduced from Egypt, or Babylonia. The purport of the term
was by these means changed: and the history, which depended upon it, either
perverted or effaced. When the title Melech, which signified a King, was
rendered [Greek: Meilichos] and [Greek: Meilichios], _sweet and gentle_, it
referred to an idea quite different from the original. But this gave them
no concern: they still blindly pursued their purpose. Some legend was
immediately invented in consequence of this misprision, some story about
bees and honey, and the mistake was rendered in some degree plausible. This
is a circumstance of much consequence; and deserves our attention greatly.
I shall have occasion to speak of it repeatedly; and to lay before the
reader some entire treatises upon the subject. For this failure is of such
a nature, as, when detected. and fairly explained, will lead us to the
solution of many dark and enigmatical histories, with which the mythology
of Greece abounds. The only author, who seems to have taken any notice of
this unhappy turn in the Grecians, is Philo Biblius. [562]He speaks of it
as a circumstance of very bad consequence, and says, that it was the chief
cause of error and obscurity: hence, when he met in Sanchoniathon with
antient names, he did not indulge himself in whimsical solutions; but gave
the true meaning, which was the result of some event or quality whence the
name was imposed. This being a secret to the Greeks, they always took
things in a wrong acceptation; being misled by a twofold sense of the terms
which occurred to them: one was the genuine and original meaning, which was
retained in the language whence they were taken: the other was a forced
sense, which the Greeks unnaturally deduced from their own language, though
there was no relation between them. The same term in different languages
conveyed different and opposite ideas: and as they attended only to the
meaning in their own tongue, they were constantly [563]mistaken.

It may appear strange to make use of the mistakes of any peopl