The Characters

OF WORKS OF THE MIND.

(1.) AFTER above seven thousand years, during which there have been men who have thought we come too late to say anything that has not been said already, the finest and most beautiful ideas on morals and manners have been swept away before our times, and nothing is left for us but to glean after the ancients and the ablest amongst the moderns.

(2.) We should only endeavour to think and speak correctly ourselves, without wishing to bring others over to our taste and opinions; this would be too great an undertaking.

(3.) To make a book is as much a trade as to make a clock; something more than intelligence is required to become an author. A certain magistrate was going to be raised by his merit to the highest legal dignity; he was a man of subtle mind and of experience, but must needs print a treatise of morality, which was quickly bought up on account of its absurdity.