94 JIESIOD.

detail by fervid descriptions, stirring battle-pieces, noble images, and graceful fancies. Such as it was, it appears to have found extensive circulation and acceptance in Greece, and to have formed the chief source of infor- mation amongst Greeks concerning the divine antiquity. This is not the kind of work to admit of a comparison of the so-called Orphic Theogony, which, in point of fact, belongs to a much later date, with that of Hesiod. Enough to state that the former, to use Mr Grote's ex- pression, " contains the Hesiodic ideas and persons, enlarged and mystically disguised." But those who have the time and materials for carrying out the com- parison for themselves, will be led to discover in the development of religious belief, in the bias towards a 'sort of unity of Godhead, and in the investment of the powers of nature with the attributes of deity, which characterise the Orphic worship and theogonies, in- direct corroboration of the opinion which assigns a very early date to the simple, unmystical, and, so to speak, unspiritual view of the divine foretime, handed down to us in Hesiod's theogonic system.