I am better pleased with the Prayer of the

Lacedemonians,

than with all the Oblations of the

Greeks.

[As]

this Prayer implied and encouraged Virtue in those who made it, the Philosopher proceeds to shew how the most vicious Man might be devout, so far as Victims could make him, but that his Offerings were regarded by the Gods as Bribes, and his Petitions as Blasphemies. He likewise quotes on this Occasion two Verses out of

Homer

[2]

, in which the Poet says, That the Scent of the

Trojan