the chosen people of God in all ages, before that in which the Poet himself flourished. Hesiod is also cited by Josephus among the ancient writers who before his time recorded that the men of the _first age_ of the world lived a _thousand years_; but Dr. Hales observes that this statement is “no where to be found in his present [extant] works.” The description of the _Second_ or _Silver age_, extends from v. 127 to v. 142, and refers to the time after the flood, when as the Poet says, “the men were much inferior to those of the _Golden age_, being unlike them both in body and mind; then, indeed, the boy of a _hundred years_ was brought up by his careful mother, as a child, passing much of his time at home; but when he grew up and reached the age of puberty, his life was speedily shortened, being embittered by ignorance; for they manifested injurious pride towards each other, and refused to serve the immortal gods, or to sacrifice at their sacred altars, which was the customary rite among civilized people; these, therefore, Jupiter the son of Saturn buried, being incensed because they honoured not the blessed gods who inhabit Olympus; and when the green turf had covered their bodies, then the blessed dead confined to the earth, were called _Secondary angels_; thus, they also had their share of honour.” This description contains internal proof that it refers to the _Postdiluvian age_, in opposition to the sentiments of some modern writers, who have supposed that the _Golden age_ referred solely to the _Paradisaical state_, and the _Silver age_ to that which immediately succeeded it. The _Golden_ age must have evidently included the _Post-Paradisaical state_, because the Poet contemplates men as _mortal_, which they had become in consequence of their loss of perfect innocence, and speaks of them as having increased in numbers, or in other words, become “multiplied on the face of the earth,” which took place only after the expulsion of the great progenitors of the race from Paradise. The _Silver age_ must have been after the flood, because the usual period of human life had not been diminished till after that event, but had in fact been rather increased just immediately before it, as in the case of Methuselah; and Noah himself the connecting link of both worlds, was longer lived than Adam. Moreover, the Poet’s account of the _Antepaidogonian age_ of mankind, corresponds in a very remarkable degree to the statements of the Septuagint, the Samaritan Text, and Josephus, on this point, and proves almost to a demonstration that the Hebrew Text originally contained the longer computation; for the traditions concerning the _Postdiluvian age_ were, of course, known to Hesiod, about _Six centuries_ before the Septuagint was in existence. The causes assigned by the poet, for the shortening of human life, seem clearly to refer to the breaking up of the ecclesiastical polity of Nimrod at Babel; and the