And many have been perfuaded, that knowledge, delivered in this our short and miscellaneous way, will ftrike more forci bly; yea, will make clearer as well as ftronger impreffions, than in a tedious, formal, didactic ftile and manner. "Con"cife sentences, like darts, fly abroad, and "make impreffion; while long difcourfes "are flat things, and not regarded." So says Bacon, in one of his Essays; and another writer of deep and strong sense, who is also laid afide for the trash of the day, hath delivered himself on this wife. "As "St. Auftin faith of fhort and holy eja"culations, that they pierce heaven as "foon, if not quicker, than more tedious prayers; so I have reaped greater bene"fit from concise and cafual meditations "on feveral topics, than from long and " voluminous treatifes, relating merely to one and the fame thing." or what you will-have we not quarto piled upon quarto, till the heap grows as huge as Pelion upon Offa? * The works of Francis Ofborn, Esq. p. 454. 1701, 8vo. Complaints will doubtlefs be preferred against us for the numerous quotations we have made, thofe efpecially from learned or foreign languages: but it must be noted, that quotations are effential to our plan, which is to inftruct and amuse by ftory and anecdote, not by deduction or chains of argument; by example chiefly, not by reasoning. We have, however, generally given the fubftance, and often a tranflation, of the paffages we quote.Mean while, it need not be diffembled, that this work is not fo much intended for the mere illiterate English reader, as for men who have been liberally trained, and are not unacquainted with languages; men, who may wish to have fome pabulum mentis, or mental fodder, always at hand, but whofe profeffions and fituations in life do not permit leisure to turn over volumes. As for thofe, whofe literary nourishment is chiefly drawn from the daily prints and periodical publications-to whom, as one writes, reading is nothing better "than a dozing kind of idleness, and the "book a mere opiate, that makes them fleep with their eyes open, for fuch, (and various are the forts of them) there are works better fuited to their capacities and taste. Those of a graver and more fedate caft will find much felf-complacency and comfort in hiftories of England, biographical dictionaries, bodies of divinity, and the like. For thofe of univerfal knowledge, (and fuch we meet with, out of coffee-houfes as well as in them) there are Magazines of various kinds, which will fupply. verbiage, or matter of talk and harangue, de omni fcibili et non fcibili. For the more gay and lively, novels and romances; and, lafly, for the critical or rather hypercritical tribe, who are ambitious to figure with airs of higher importance, there are journals and reviews, which will furnish the titles of all publications, with obfervations and ftrictures to defcant upon them, Such afpirants will hence be enabled to pronounce upon all fubjects and all authors, without having Effays of Pope Blount: a writer of great good fenfe and wit, laid afide for the trash of the day, and now become obfolete and almoft forgotten. 10 read or examined any "; to appear learned, without being fo; in short, to be admired as critics and scholars, by those who are not critics and fcholars for this, furely, is as much as can in reafon be defired. : But we need not detain our reader here; these and other fimilar points being occafionally touched in the courfe of our work. 3° Lord Bacon fpeaks of certain persons, who thought it no mean thing, if, by compendious extracts from. other men's wits, they could figure and parade with some shew of learning: magnum certè quiddam præftare videntur, fi delibantes aliorum ingenia, ex compendio fapiant, aut in cortice doctrinæ aliquatenùs hæreant. De. Augm. Scient. l. 1. CON |