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Science gives no countenance to such a wild fancy; nor can even the perverse ingenuity of a commentator pretend to discover this sense, in the simple words in which the writer of Genesis records the proceedings of the fifth and sixth days of the Creation.

The commentator thinks that saudram karma has especial reference to the service of others. Hence what is interdicted for the Brahmanas is the service of others. In this country to this day, when food is prepared in view of guests invited to a house, no portion of such food can be offered to any one before it is dedicated to the deities and placed before those for whom it is intended.

There are no two things more opposed than the childish naïveté of an ancient author and the learning of his commentator. Dilettanti, dilettanti! This is the slighting way in which those who pursue any branch of art or learning for the love and enjoyment of the thing, per il loro diletto, are spoken of by those who have taken it up for the sake of gain, attracted solely by the prospect of money.

Yet he was the first Hellenistic Jew who perceived the fundamental harmony between the philosopher's idealism and Jewish monotheism, and he was the first important commentator of Plato who developed the religious teaching of his master into a powerful spiritual force.

N. B. This hypothesis possesses all the advantages, and involves none of the absurdity of that which would attribute the 'Ecclesiasticus' to the infamous Jason, the High Priest. More than one commentator, I find, has suspected that the Wisdom of Solomon and the second book of Maccabees were by the same author. I think this nothing. Ib. p. 36.

His edition of Blackstone's Commentaries is the first American edition, printed in Philadelphia in 1771. It is creditable to the press of that time, and is overlaid with annotations, showing how diligently the future American commentator studied the elegant work of his English predecessor.

He had the fair Saxon features of Scotland, with a smile like a Summer morning. Not tall in stature, his head was somewhat bald, and he bore a striking resemblance to our ex-President, Van Buren. He showed me in his house some choice literary treasures; among them a little Greek Testament, given to his great-grandfather, the famous John Brown, of Haddington, the eminent commentator.

But surely anybody, presupposing a certain bias towards sanity, can understand the Classics of our own language, with the exception, of course, of Browning. Take Tennyson, for example. How often have we been forced to take down from dictation the miserable maunderings of some commentator on the subject of Maud. A person reads Maud, and either likes it or dislikes it.

In some perhaps I have been anticipated; but if I am ever found to encroach upon the remarks of any other commentator, I am willing that the honour, be it more or less, should be transferred to the first claimant, for his right, and his alone, stands above dispute; the second can prove his pretensions only to himself, nor can himself always distinguish invention, with sufficient certainty, from recollection.

And, fortunately for us, the most rapid evolution in his thought took place daring the ten years to which his extant letters belong. It is exceedingly interesting to trace his gradual progress away from Apocalyptic Messianism to a position very near that of the fourth Gospel. The evangelist whom we call St. John is the best commentator on Paulinism.