46 THE IMPROVEMENT OF TnE MIND. But where an author has many beauties consistent. with 'virtue, piety, and truth, let not little critics exalt themselves, and shower down'their ill-nature upon him, without bounds or measure; but rather stretch their own powers of sóul till they write a treatise superior to that which they condemn. This is the noblest and súrest manner of suppressing what they censure. A little wit, or a little learning, with a good degree of vanity and ill-nature, will teach a man to pour out whole pages Of remark and reproach upon one real or fancied mistake of a great and good author : and this may be dressed up by the same talents, and made entertaining, enough to the world, who love reproach and scandal : but if the remarker would but once make this attempt, and try to outshine the author by writing a. better book on the same 'subject, he would, soon be con- vinced of his own insufficiency, and perhaps might learn, judge more justly and favourably of the performance of the men. A cobler or a shoe-maker may find. some little fault with the latchet of a shoe that an Apelles had painted, and perhaps with justice too ; when the whole figure andportraiture is such as none but Apelles could paint. Every poor low genius may ca- Vil at what the richest and the noblest bath performed ; but it is a sign of envy and malice, added to the littleness and poverty of genius, when such a cavil becomes a sufficient reason to pronounce at once against a bright author and a whole valua- ble treatise. X. Another, and that a very frequent fault in passing a judgment upon books, is this, that persons spread the saine praises or the same reproaches over a whole treatise, and all the chapters in it, which are dueonly to some of them. They judge as it where by wholesale, without making a due distinction be- tween the several parts or sections of the performance ; and this is ready to lead those who hear them talk into a dangerous mis- take. Florus is a great and just admirer of the late archbishop of Cambray, and mightily commends every thing he lias written, and will allow no blemish in him whereas the writings of that excellent man are not all of a piece, nor are those very books of his, which have a good number of beautiful and valuable senti- ments in them, to be recommended throughout, or all at once without distinction. There is his Demonstration of the Exist- ence and Attributes of God, which has justly gained an univer- sal esteem, for bringing down some new and noble thoughts of the wisdomof the creation to the understandingof the unlearned, and they are such as well deserve the perusal of the men of science, perhaps as far as the 50th Section ; but there are many of the following Sections which are very weakly written, and some of them built upon an eathusiastical and mistaken scheme,
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