I reject at once all attempt to penetrate an unfathomable obscurity for an idle object.

I do not pause to inquire whether, after the destruction of Babel, Javan was the first settler in Attica, nor is it reserved for my labours to decide the solemn controversy whether Ogyges was the contemporary of Jacob or of Moses.

Neither shall I suffer myself to be seduced into any lengthened consideration of those disputes, so curious and so inconclusive, relative to the origin of the Pelasgi (according to Herodotus the earliest inhabitants of Attica), which have vainly agitated the learned.

It may amuse the antiquary to weigh gravely the several doubts as to the derivation of their name from Pelasgus or from Peleg--to connect the scattered fragments of tradition--and to interpret either into history or mythology the language of fabulous genealogies.

But our subtlest hypotheses can erect only a fabric of doubt, which, while it is tempting to assault, it is useless to defend.