When Mahommed wanted to establish an ordinance for his followers, or to take out a license for himself for the breach of his own laws, as when he chose to have an extra allowance of wives, or coveted those of his neighbours, he used to promulgate a fragment of the Koran, revealed _pro re natâ_, that is to say in honest old English _for the nonce_. It has been determined with sufficient accuracy at what times certain portions were composed, because the circumstances in his public or private history which rendered them necessary, or convenient, are known. And what has been done with these parts, might have been done with the whole, if due pains had been taken, at a time when persons were still living who knew when, and why, every separate portion had been,—as they believed,—revealed. This would have required more diligence than the first Caliph had either leisure or inclination to bestow, and perhaps more sagacity than he possessed: the task would have been difficult, but it was possible. But my commentators will never be able to ascertain anything more of the chronology of this Koran, than the dates of its conception, and of its birth-day, the interval between them having been more than twenty years. INTERCHAPTER X. MORE ON THE FOREGOING SUBJECT. ELUCIDATIONS FROM HENRY MORE AND DR. WATTS. AN INCIDENTAL OPINION UPON HORACE WALPOLE. THE STREAM OF THOUGHT “FLOWETH AT ITS OWN SWEET WILL.” PICTURES AND BOOKS. A SAYING OF MR. PITT'S CONCERNING WILBERFORCE. THE AUTHOR EXPLAINS IN WHAT SENSE IT MIGHT BE SAID THAT HE SOMETIMES SHOOTS WITH A LONG BOW. _Vorrei, disse il Signor Gasparo Pallavicino, che voi ragionassi un poco piu minutamente di questo, che non fate; che en vero vi tenete molto al generale, et quasi ci mostrate le cose per transito._ IL CORTEGIANO. Henry More, in the Preface General to the collection of his philosophical writings, says to the reader, “if thy curiosity be forward to enquire what I have done in these new editions of my books, I am ready to inform thee that I have taken the same liberty in this Intellectual Garden of my own planting, that men usually take in their natural ones; which is, to set or pluck up, to transplant and inoculate, where and what they please. And therefore if I have rased out some things, (which yet are but very few) and transposed others, and interserted others, I hope I shall seem injurious to no man in ordering and cultivating this Philosophical Plantation of mine according to mine own humour and liking.” Except as to the rasing out, what our great Platonist has thus said for himself, may here be said for me. “Many things,” as the happy old lutanist, Thomas Mace, says, “are good, yea, very good; but yet upon after-consideration we have met with the comparative, which is better; yea, and after that, with the superlative, (best of all), by adding to, or altering a little, the same good things.”