MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT GREECE AND ITALY. BY THOMAS KEIGHTLEY, AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF GREECE," THE PLATES ETCHED ON STEEL, BY W. H. BROOKE, F.S.A. PRINTED BY RICHARD AND JOHN E. TAYLOR, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET. P R E F A СЕ. THIS new edition of the Mythology of Greece and Italy is properly speaking a new work. Few pages or even paragraphs remain unaltered, and nearly two-thirds of it are new matter, or have been rewritten. The causes of this change (of which I think an explanation is due) are as follows. The work was originally intended to be a mere school-book, and it was commenced on that plan; circumstances caused it to be continued on another, and to be completed on a third; hence the inequality in it which every one must have observed. Further, it was written at such hours as I could withdraw from other literary avocations, and with but a moderate apparatus of books; hence the errors in facts, as I did not always recollect to verify what I had written from perhaps a bad edition of a classic author. Finally, I was only a learner when I aspired to become a teacher; and though I had attained to correct principles, I had not acquired the habit of applying them with readiness and accuracy. Considering these real defects, and that the work was by an author who was little known, and on a subject against which there was rather a prejudice, and that it appeared during the very height of the Reform fever, when few could think of the calm pursuit of literature, it may be said to have had more success than could have been reasonably anticipated. The praises which it has received from Mr. Thirlwall and other competent judges have naturally given me much gratification; for as they must have been well aware of its defects, it is plain that they thought them to be more than compensated by its merits. Of the present Edition I think I may venture to speak with |