What Cicero says of philosophy is true likewise of wit and humour, that "time effaces the fictions of opinion, and confirms the determinations of Nature." Such manners as depend upon standing relations and general passions are co-extended with the race of man; but those modifications of life, and peculiarities of practice, which are the progeny of error and perverseness, or at best of some accidental influence or transient persuasion, must perish with their parents.
Much therefore of that humour which transported thc century with merriment is lost to us, who do not know the four solemnity, the sullen superstition, the gloomy moroseness, and the stubborn scruples, of the ancient Puritans; or, if we knew them, derive our information only from books, or from tradition, have never had them be fore our eyes, and cannot but by recollection and study understand the lines in which they are satyrised. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life; we judge of the life by contemplating the picture.
It is scarcely possible, in the regularity and composure of the present time, to
