Page:Ovid's Metamorphoses (Vol. 1) - tr Garth, Dryden, et. al. (1727).djvu/53

Rh to fathom the Divine Sense of the Pagan Theology; whilst we aim at no more, than to judge of a little common Sense.

It is, and ever will be a Rule to a great many, to applaud and condemn with the general Vogue, tho' never so ill grounded. The most are afraid of being Particular; and rather than strive against the Stream, are proud of being in the wrong with the Many, rather than desirous of being in the right with the Few: and tho' they be convinc'd of the Reasonableness of dissenting from the common Cry, yet out of a poor fear of Censure, they contribute to establish it, and thus become an Authority against others, who in Reality are but of their own Opinion

Ovid was so far from paying a blind Deference to the venerable Name of his Grecian Predecessor, in the Character of his Gods; that when Jupiter punishes Andromeda for the Crimes of her Mother, he calls him injustus Ammon, Met. B. 4. and takes commonly an honourable care of the Decorum of the Godhead, when their Actions are consistent with the Divinity of their Character. His Allegories include some Religious, or instructive Moral, wrap'd up in a peculiar Perspicuity. The Fable of Proserpine, being sometimes in Hell, and sometimes with Ceres her Mother, can scarce mean any thing else than the sowing and coming up of the Corn. The various Dresses, that Vertumnus, the God of Seasons, puts on in his Courtship of Pomona the Garden Goddess, seem plainly to press