As this matter allows of poetical ornaments, the poets have vied with each other in endeavoring to adorn their pages with them, not that they were convinced there was any truth in what they said; they were the first to laugh at it when an opportunity presented itself, as well as the gravest and wisest men of antiquity. But neither princes nor priests took much pains to undeceive the people, or to destroy their prejudices on those subjects. The Pagan religion allowed them, nay, authorized them, and part of its practices were founded on similar superstitions. Footnotes: [168] Plin. lib. iii. c. 2. [169] Philost. Vit. Apollon. [170] Lactant. lib. vi. Divin. Instit. c. 13. [171] Aug. ad Simplic. [172] Tertull. de Anima, c. 57. [173] Lucan. Pharsal. lib. vi. 450, _et seq._ [174] "Cessavere vices rerum, dilataque longa, Haesit nocte dies; legi non paruit aether; Torpuit et praeceps audito carmine mundus; Et tonat ignaro coelum Jove." [175] "Cantat et e curro tentat deducere Lunam Et faceret, si non aera repulsa sonent." _Tibull._ lib. i. Eleg. ix. 21. [176] Pietro della Valle, Voyage. [177] ".... Obscurum verborum ambage nervorum Ter novies carmen magico demurmurat ore. Jam ciet infernas magico stridore catervas, Jam jubet aspersum lacte referre pedem. Cum libet, haec tristi depellit nubila coelo; Cum libet, aestivo provocat orbe nives." _Ovid. Metamorph._ 14. [178] "Nais nam ut cantu, nimiumque potentibus herbis Verterit in tacitos juvenilia corpora pisces." [179] "Vipereo generi et graviter spirantibus hydris Spargere qui somnos cantuque manque solebat," CHAPTER XV. OF THE PAGAN ORACLES. If it were well proved that the oracles of pagan antiquity were the work of the evil spirit, we could give more real and palpable proofs of the apparition of the demon among men than these boasted oracles, which were given in almost every country in the world, among the nations which passed for the wisest and most enlightened, as the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians, Syrians, even the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. Even the most barbarous people were not without their oracles. In the pagan religion there was nothing esteemed more honorable, or more complacently boasted of.