Diagoras, Socrates, Plato, and the philosophers of Athens, with Cicero, their admirer, and the other pretended wise men of Rome are men by themselves.  These were the atheists with respect to the ancients.  We must not, therefore, look into Plato, or into Cicero, for the real religion of the pagans, as distinct from the fabulous.  These two authors involve themselves in the clouds, that their opinions may not be discovered.  They durst not openly attack the real religion; but destroyed it by attacking fable.  To distinguish here, with exactness, the agreement or difference between fable and religion, is not, at present, my intention.  It is not easy[2] to show, with exactness, what was the Athenian notion of the nature of the gods whom they worshipped.  Plutarch himself tells us, that this was a thing very difficult for the philosophers.  It is sufficient for me that the mythology and theology of the ancients were different at the bottom; that the names of the gods continued the same; and that long custom gave up one to the caprices of the poets, without supposing the other affected by them.  This being once settled upon the authority of the ancients themselves, I am no longer surprised to see Jupiter, Minerva, Neptune, Bacchus, appear upon the stage in the comedy of Aristophanes, and, at the same time, receiving incense in the temples of Athens.  This is, in my opinion, the most reasonable account of a thing so obscure; and I am ready to give up my system to any other, by which the Athenians shall be made more consistent with themselves; those Athenians who sat laughing at the gods of Aristophanes, while they condemned Socrates for having appeared to despise the gods of his country.

6.  THE MIMI AND PANTOMIMES.

A word is now to be spoken of the mimi, which had some relation to comedy.  This appellation was, by the Greeks and Romans, given to certain dramatick performances, and to the actors that played them.  The denomination sufficiently shows, that their art consisted in imitation and buffoonery.  Of their works, nothing, or very little, is remaining; so that they can only be considered, by the help of some passages in authors, from which little is to be learned that deserves consideration.  I shall extract the substance, as I did with respect to the chorus, without losing time, by defining all the different species, or producing all the quotations, which would give the reader more trouble than instruction.  He that desires fuller instructions may read Vossius, Valois, Saumaises, and Gataker, of whose compilations, however learned, I should think it shame to be the author.