Having thus given the substance of this famous his tory, we should now endeavour to show what meaning is to be extracted from this mass of fiction. But this is an enterprise which, though less perilous, scarcely ap pears less hopeless in its issue, than that of the Argo nauts must have done, to any one who contemplated their labours. We will not mislead our readers, by pretending to unravel this mysterious history: We could exercise their patience sufficiently, by detailing the conjectures of others; but we shall state only a few of these, not so much in hopes of satisfying the mind of a rational enquirer, as with a view to show that this story is involved in impenetrable darkness. In the first place, the story of Phryxus and Helle riding on a golden ram, is said to have arisen from their sailing in a ship, which bore for its ensign, the figure of such an animal. And, with regard to the famous expedition of the Greeks, to carry off the golden fleece, it arose, according to Strabo and Justin, from this, that the mountains of Colchis, now Mingrelia, contained a great quantity of gold, which was washed down by the torrents, and which the na tives used to collect, by stretching fleeces of wool across the stream ; the Greeks fitted out their expedition, to possess themselves of this precious metal. Pliny and Varro say, that it was undertaken to obtain the fine wool of Colchis; whilst Suidas, accommodating his ex planation more exactly to the marvellous strain of the narrative, tells us, that it was to get possession of a parchment book, made of sheep's skin, which contain ed the whole secret of the philosopher's stone.
The moderns also must have their explanations, and we are sorry to find sir Isaac Newton, on this subject, disgracing his philosophy, 14 the most unfounded as sumptions. In his Chronology, he supposes that the Argonautic expedition, which he fixes about 30 years before the taking of Troy, was an embassy, sent by the Greeks, to persuade the nations along the Euxine and Mediterranean seas, to throw off the yoke of Ameno phis, king of Egypt, during his absence in Ethiopia. Dr Gillies, in the first volume of his history of Greece, supposes that the Argonautic expedition was a confede racy, formed by the states of Greece, under the influ ence of the Amphictyonic council, to repel the invasions of their barbarous neighbours, and to enrich themselves with foreign plunder. With regard to this opinion, we
may say, that it is, at least, as good as any of its fore runners.
But, in truth, it would perhaps be easier to show that such an expedition never existed, than to explain its object and unfold its true history. For, after making all due allowances for poetical fictions and embellish ments, there remain so many absurdities and contradic tions, that no ingenuity can reconcile them with com mon sense. The Argonauts, for instance, being inter cepted in their return by Aetes, who pursued them to recover his daughter, immediately directed their course northward, and sailed through the heart of Europe, till they reached the Cronian sea, or Baltic, from whence they steered homewards through the British seas and the Atlantic, and at last entered the Mediterranean, by the straits of Gibraltar. Hesiod carries them through Asia, and then brings them round by Libya into the Mediterranean. Now, assuredly, such a navigation as this never could be performed by any vessel but Noah's ark ; and, accordingly, Mr Bryant refers the whole of the Argonautic history to traditionary stories respecting the deluge, which the Greeks, according to their usual practice, disfigured by their fictions, and appropriated to their own history. The learned author, however, is more successful in demolishing the systems of others, than in establishing his own ; but, whatever may be thought of his own opinion, he seems to have demon strated, that there is not a single circumstance connect ed with the Argonautic expedition, that can be depended on, but that the whole is a mass of indigested fables. And yet it seems to rest on as good authority as the siege of Troy ; but we tremble when we think of the conse quences that might arise from this admission ; and, as we Ile\ er wish to encourage unreasonable scepticism, we shall here close our speculations in the words of the Roman satirist :