Israel and capable of public offices. 1 Cor. x. 8, mentions fornication as a crime in the Jews, and doth not mean spiritual fornication, i. e. idolatry, for the preceding verse speaks of that; and the fornication to which it refers was with foreign women. Philo the Jew, who lived in Christ's time, saith in his life of Joseph, that it was peculiar to the Jews, that they were forbidden all whoredom by their law. It was reckoned a ground of shame and contempt before the law; Gen. xxxviii. 23. Job xxxi. 9-11 saith, if mine heart hath been deceived by a woman, (he doth not confine it to a married woman) this is a heinous crime, &c. Nay, v. 1, he goes further still. And certainly the Proverbs and the prophets condemn whoredom in men very strongly. And there is no intimation in scripture, that it was permitted the Jews for the hardness of their hearts. It appears indeed from 1 Kings, iii. 16, that they did sometimes tolerate it, as they did many other bad things.

"Now compare with these particulars the praises given Solon for allowing full liberty to whores at Athens; the praises given by Cato to a young fellow coming out of a bawdy house; the well-known passage of Terence in favour of whoring; the challenge of Cicero to name any time, when men were blamed for it, or not countenanced in it, &c. &c. &c. Pythagoras's verses were not

written by him, nor is it known when: besides that his precept, as you observe, is too general to determine any thing. Learned men have observed long ago, that Phocylides is interpolated both from the Old and New Testament, probably after the days of the early Christian writers: for they do not produce these places from him. And therefore his two words, preserve virginity, will be of no use neither. But, which is very remarkable, several philosophers after Christ, Mausonius, Dion called the Golden-mouthed, and Porphyry, speak warmly against fornication.

"I may as well add here, what will perhaps be of use to you in another place, as I know not whether you observed it in reading Brucker, [I now see you did] that he extends the life of Epictetus to Adrian's time, who reigned from A. D. 117, to 138. He would therefore have time, and his situation both in Rome and Greece would give him opportunity, not only to converse with many Christians, but to see the books of the New Testament, and other writings of theirs. Some think he lived to the reign of the Antonines: but Fabricius hath shewn, that probably they mistake.”

Dec. 1, 1808.

N° XLVIII.

What is light Reading ;-Poetry, a gift.

I PUBLISH the following letter, as I received it. I think I can guess at the handwriting; and if my conjecture is right, I must entreat the author to throw away some part of the diffidence expressed in the latter part of the paper.

Poeta nascitur non fit.

TO THE RUMINATOR.

MR. RUMINATOR,

I am one of those who prefer rambling effusions, and the natural association of ideas, to formal essays. To you, therefore, who certainly cannot be blamed for a narrow taste, and seem to love every species of intellectual effort; who do not judge by rule, nor repeat hacknied phrases of mechanical criticism as substitutes for feeling and thought, I trust I may address a frank and unstudied letter with the certainty of a candid re

ception.

Allow me then to say,

that

among

those books

which are called light reading, it is the fashion to class many of those productions, which ought to stand in a high rank, both in point of genius and usefulness. They who have climbed up to the chair of criticism, by toil, and an unwearied attention to those departments in literature which are attainable rather by patient drudgery than by the partial endowments of Nature, will of course use every exertion and artifice to encourage this erro neous fashion. The ignorant great, as well as vulgar, are fond of admiring what they do not understand; and it is necessary that a work should take a scientific form, and be clothed in outward pomposity, before it be deemed profound and important.

But does it never occur to these wise judges to listen to the lessons of time, and observe what are the productions which have retained within themselves the seeds of life? The works of the mere learned, for the most part, nay the larger part of the labours of science have been pushed off the stage by their successors, as wave swallows up wave. Their materials have been pulled to pieces, and worked up afresh; and little but their name, (if even that) remains. And thus it is with artificial writers, even in the Belles Lettres. Simplicity, predominant vigour of genius, and natural

eloquence alone survive the changes of fashion, and

lapse of ages.

The tricks of composition, the temporary objects. of admiration in style, sentiment, or form, become as ridiculous and disgusting in one age, as they were attractive in another. From the Euphuism of Wm. Lilly in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, to the stiff glitter of Lord Bolingbroke in the last reign, all is gone by and forgotten. Look at old Reviews forty years back, and observe the books that they have commended, and the books that they have abused. Of the former a large part are now no longer heard of; many of the latter are among the most popular and admitted works of genius.

There is an unsophisticated force of intellect; the power of a vivid fancy, and a warm and tremulous heart; which, when it has attained the habit of expressing itself with facility in apt and unstudied language, is certain of gaining the interest and approbation of every reader of pure taste, not at one period only, but in futurity. I would carefully preserve the letters, the undisguised thoughts, and. most of the fragments of such a writer.

Half-witted censurers may call such remains, "light-reading." Do they not remember then,

that

"The proper study of mankind is man?"