Page:Proofs of the Enquiry into Homer's Life and Writings.pdf/64

Rh H o m e rV Life and Writings.

51

early Heroes of Greece, or from his own Father, Sect. of whom Ammianus Marcellinus says,— JX. ' Pelusium in Egypt, a famous Town, ^T^n) bable that the Nature of the Soil has been the Reason of the Name, from n«Ao? Clay especially ifit be the Tanis or Clay-Town of the Egyptians. Th e Produce of that fertile Region is accu rately described by Homer, E g tp't, where Mother-Earth all bounteous yields Innumerable Drugs of various Use:
 * which Peleus, Achilles's Father, is said to 144. (r)
 * have first founded : ' But it is much more pro

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Some highly precious for their healthful Juice, And many pestilential, fraught with Death. ^

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As the Egyptian was among the

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Governments in the World, so it was likewise the most severely modelled : ' appointed in Egypt, or of hearing Causes, and ' giving Judgment ; but the Hour for walking, ' for going into the Bath, for caressing one's ' Wife ; and in a word for every thing that is Di odor us the Sicilian. The cloudy stubborn Temper of the People required perhaps such strict Regulations : ' The ' greatest Part are dusky and moorif) in their ' Com-
 * For not only were the Hours of Business
 * ddne in Life.'
 * Egyptians, fays another Historian, for the
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