Spence, Joseph; Tindal, Nicholas [Hrsg.]; Dodsley, James [Bearb.]: A Guide To Classical Learning: Or, Polymetis Abridged: Containing, I. By Way of Introduction, the Characters of the Latin Poets and their Work ... II. An Inquiry concerning the Agreement between the Works of the Roman Poets and the Remains of the Antient Artists ... Being a Work absolutely necessary, not only for the Right Understanding of the Classics, but also for forming in Young Minds a True Taste for the Beauties of Poetry, Sculpture, and Painting (London: Printed for J. Dodsley, 1786)

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with him to heaven. They both say the same
thing, only the poetical way of expressing it is
more personal, beautiful, and descriptive, than the
prose one. This is generally the case in the ma-
chinery of the antients ; and as they supposed that
man could do nothing of himself, but was actuated
in every thing by the direction of heaven, their
poets, on that single principle, might fairly intro-
duce some proper deity as assisting in any action,
wherever they thought it would serve either to
strengthen or beautify the narration.
The deities of the Romans were very nume-
rous ; for whatever was able to do good or harm
to man was immediately looked on as a superior
power, which in their language was the same as a
deity Hence it was that they had such a multi-
tude of gods, that their temples were better peo-
pled with statues, than their cities with men. But,
numerous as they were, our author has reduced
them to order, and classed them in the following
manner :
* Their vulgar religion, as indeed that of the heathens in
general, was a sort of Manicheism. Both the Romans and
Greeks had their good and bad gods. See a remarkable passage
in Pliny, Nat. Hist. 1. ii. c. 7. Valerius Maximus, speaking of
the goddess of distempers, gives the reason for worlhipping bad
gods as well as good. They prayed to the good for blessings, and
to the bad to avert evils, 1. ii. c. 5. There were no less than
three temples at Rome to the goddess Febris, orjever.