CHAPTER V. 14 and will give their judgment on a book as soon as the.title of it is mentioned, for they would not willingly seem ignorant of any thing that others know. And especially if they happen to have any superior character or possessions in this world, they fancy they have a right to talk freely upon every thing that stirs or appears, though they have no other, pretence to this freedom. Divito is worth forty thousand pounds; Politulus is a fine young gentlemen, who sparkles in all the shining things of dress and equipage; Aulinus is' a small attendant on a minister of state, and is at court almost every day. These three happened to meet in a visit, where an excellent hook of warm and refined devo- tions lay in the window. What dull stuff is here! said Divito; I never read so much nonsense in one page in my life, nor would I give a shilling for a thousand such treatises. Auli nus, though a courtier, and not used to speak roughly, yet would not allow there was a line of good sense in the book, and pronounced him a madman that wrote it in his secret retirement, and declared him a fool that published it after his death. Poli- talus had more manners than to differ from menof such a rank and character, and therefore he sneered at the devout expres- aions as he heard them read, and made the divine treatise a matter of scorn and ridicule ; and yet it was well known, that neither this fine gentleman, nor the courtier, nor the man of wealth, had a grain of devotion in them beyond their horses that waited at the door with their gilded chariots. But this is the way of the world : blind men will talk of the beauty of co- lours, and of the harmony or disproportion of figures in paint- ing; the deaf will prate of discords in music,; and those who have nothing to do with religion, will arraign the best treatise on divine subjects, though they do not understand the very lan- guage of the scripture, nor thecommon terms or phrases used is christianity. VII. I might here name another sort of judges, who will set themselves op to decide in favour of an author, or will pro- nounce him a mere blunderer, according to the company they have kept, and the judgment they have heard past upon a book by others of their' own stamp or size, though they have no know- ledge or taste of the subject themselves. These with a fluent and voluble tongue become mere echos of the praises or censures of other men. Sonillus happened to be in the room where the three gentlemen just mentioned gave out their thoughts so freely upon an admirable book of devotion ; and two days afterwards he met with some friends of his where this book was the subject öf conversation and praise. Sonillus wonderedat their dulness, and repeated the jests which he had heard cast upon the weak- ness of the author. His knowledge of the book and his decision upon it was all from 'hearsay, for he had never seen it: and if he had read it through, he had no manner of right to judge about
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