r with greater impunity than any of his subjects. Such was
not the case with the more polished Greeks. In the dark ages the most
glaring enormities of that kind prevailed. Under our Charles the
Second coarse dissipation and riot characterised the highest circles.
Rochester, the most accomplished man and the greatest wit of our island,
related of himself that, for five years together, he could not affirm
that for any one day he had been thoroughly sober. In Ireland, a
country less refined than our own, the period is not long past, when on
convivial occasions the master of the house took the key from his door,
that no one of his guests might escape without having had his dose. No
small number of the contemporaries of my youth fell premature victims
to the intemperance which was then practised. Now wine is merely used
to excite a gayer and livelier tone of the spirits; and inebriety is
scarcely known in the higher circles. In like manner, it may readily
be believed that, as men in the lower classes of society become less
ignorant and obtuse, as their thoughts are less gross, as they wear off
the vestigia ruris, the remains of a barbarous state, they will find
less need to set their spirits afloat by this animal excitement, and
will devote themselves to those thoughts and that intercourse which
shall inspire them with better and more honourable thoughts of our
common nature.

ESSAY X. OF IMITATION AND INVENTION.

Of the sayings of the wise men of former times none has been oftener
repeated than that of Solomon, "The thing that hath been, is that which
is; and that which is done, is that which shall be done; and there is no
new thing under the sun."

The books of the Old Testament are apparently a collection of the whole
literary remains of an ancient and memorable people, whose wisdom may
furnish instruction to us, and whose poetry abounds in lofty flights
and sublime imagery. How this collection came indiscriminately to
be considered as written by divine inspiration, it is difficult to
pronounce. The history of the Jews, as contained in the Books of Kings
and of Chronicles, certainly did not require the interposition of
the Almighty for its production; and the pieces we receive as the
compositions of Solomon have conspicuously the air of having emanated
from a conception entirely human.

In the book of Ecclesiastes, from which the above sentence is taken,
are many sentiments not in accordance with the religion of