The Law does not appear to have had much charm for him; he thought that he could do something better.

But the religious lyrics of the Psalms were in marvellous accordance with his poetic soul; they were, all his life, his food and sustenance.

The prophets--Isaiah in particular, and his successor in the record of the time of the captivity,--with their brilliant dreams of the future, their impetuous eloquence, and their invectives mingled with enchanting pictures, were his true teachers.
He read also, no doubt, many apocryphal works--_i.e._, writings somewhat modern, the authors of which, for the sake of an authority only granted to very ancient writings, had clothed themselves with the names of prophets and patriarchs.

One of these books especially struck him, namely, the Book of Daniel.

This book, composed by an enthusiastic Jew of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, under the name of an ancient sage,[1] was the _resume_ of the spirit of those later times.