Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/160

108 a gall, these horned ones were so redundant in that part, that their flesh was not to be eaten, because of its extreme bitterness.

Now, the reason why those ancient writers treated this subject only by types and figures, was, because they durst not make open attacks against a party so potent and terrible, as the criticks of those ages were; whose very voice was so dreadful, that a legion of authors would tremble, and drop their pens at the sound; for so Herodotus tells us expressly in another place, how a vast army of Scythians was put to flight in a panick terrour, by the braying of an ASS. From hence it is conjectured by certain profound philologers, that the great awe and reverence paid to a true critick, by the writers of Britain, have been derived to us from those our Scythian ancestors. In short, this dread was so universal, that in process of time, those authors, who had a mind to publish their sentiments more freely, in describing the true criticks of their several ages, were forced to leave off the use of the former hieroglyph, as too nearly approaching the prototype, and invented other terms instead thereof, that were more cautious and mystical: so, Diodorus, speaking to the same purpose, ventures no farther, than to say, that in the mountains of Helicon, there grows a certain weed, which bears a flower of so damned a scent, as to poison those who offer to smell it. Lucretius gives exactly the same relation; Est