Excerpt from The Four Ages: Together With Essays on Various Subjects The greatest part of these Essays should be considered as Sketches for a Periodical Paper, which was once intended for publication - they are, in consequence, upon familiar subjects, and treated as such - The Four-Ages, and other Pieces (easily distinguished) made no part of the above design; but though less proper for a Paper, they are more so for a Book, which may be considered as an addition to the Thirty Letters already published by the same Author. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.