come scholars and wits, without the fatigue of reading or of thinking. The most accomplished way of using books at present, is twofold: either first, to serve them as some men do lords, learn their titles exactly, and then brag of their acquaintance. Or secondly, which is indeed the choicer, the profounder, and politer method, to get a thorough insight into the index, by which the whole book is governed and turned, like fishes by the tail. For, to enter the palace of learning at the great gate, requires an expense of time and forms; therefore men of much haste, and little ceremony, are content to get in by the back-door. For, the arts are all in a flying march, and therefore more easily subdued by attacking them in the rear. Thus physicians discover the state of the whole body, by consulting only what comes from behind. Thus men catch knowledge, by throwing their wit on the posteriors of a book, as boys do sparrows with flinging salt upon their tails. Thus human life is best understood, by the wise man's rule, of regarding the end. Thus are the sciences found, like Hercules's oxen, by tracing them backwards. Thus are old sciences unravelled, like old stockings, by beginning at the foot.

Beside all this, the army of the sciences has been of late, with a world of martial discipline, drawn into its close order, so that a view or a muster may be taken of it, with abundance of expedition. For this great blessing we are wholly indebted to systems and abstracts, in which the modern fathers of learning, like prudent usurers, spent their sweat for the ease of us their children. For, labour is the seed

of

of idleness, and it is the peculiar happiness of our poble age, to gather the fruit.

Now the method of growing wise, learned, and sublime, having become so regular an affair, and so established in all its forms; the number of writers must needs have increased accordingly, and to a pitch that has made it of absolute necessity for them, to interfere continually with each other. Besides, it is reckoned, that there is not at this present, a sufficient quantity of new matter left in nature, to furnish and adorn any one particular subject, to the extent of a volume. This I am told by a very skilful computer, who has given a full demonstration of it from rules of arithmetick.

This perhaps may be objected against by those, who maintain the infinity of matter, and therefore will not allow, that any species of it can be exhausted. For answer to which, let us examine the noblest branch of modern wit or invention, planted and cultivated by the present age, and which, of all others, has born the most and the fairest fruit. For, though some remains of it were left us by the ancients, yet have not any of those, as I remember, been translated or compiled into systems for modern use. Therefore we may affirm to our own honour, that it has, in some sort, been both invented, and brought to perfection by the same hands. What I mean, is, that highly celebrated talent among the modern wits, of deducing similitudes, allusions, and applications, very surprising, agreeable, and apposite from the pudenda of either sex, together with their proper uses. And truly, having observed how little invention bears any vogue, beside what is derived into these channels, I have sometimes had a thought,

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thought, that the happy genius of our age and country, was prophetically held forth by that ancient typical description of the Indian pygmies *; whose stature did not exceed above two foot; sed quorum pudenda crassa, et ad talos usque pertingentia. Now, I have been very curious to inspect the late productions, wherein the beauty of this kind have most prominently appeared; and although this vein has bled so freely, and all endeavours have been used in the power of human breath to dilate, extend, and keep it open; like the Scythians, who had a custom, and an instrument, to blow up the privities of their mares, that they might yield the more milk: yet I am under an apprehension, it is near growing dry, and past all recovery; and that either some new fonde of wit should, if possible, be provided, or else, that we must even be content with repetition here, as well as upon all other occasions.

This will stand as an incontestable argument, that our modern wits are not to reckon upon the infinity of matter, for a constant supply. What remains therefore, but that our last recourse must be had to large indexes, and little compendiums? quotations must be plentifully gathered, and booked in alphabet; to this end, though authors need be little consulted, yet criticks, and commentators, and lexicons carefully must. But above all, those judicious collectors of bright parts, and flowers, and observandas, are to be nicely dwelt on, by some called the sieves and boulters of learning; though it is left undetermined, whether they dealt in pearls or meal; and consequently, whether we are more to value that which passed through, or what staid behind.

Ctesia fragm. apud Photium.

↑ Herodot. L. 4.

By

By these methods, in a few weeks, there starts up many a writer, capable of managing the profoundest, and most universal subjects. For, what though his head be empty, provided his commonplace book be full; and if you will bate him but the circumstances of method, and style, and grammar, and invention; allow him but the common privileges of transcribing from others, and digressing from himself, as often as he shall see occasion; he will desire no more ingredients towards fitting up a treatise, that shall make a very comely figure on a bookseller's shelf; there to be preserved neat and clean for a long eternity, adorned with the heraldry of its title fairly inscribed on a label; never to be thumbed or greased by students, nor bound to everlasting chains of darkness in a library: but, when the fulness of time is come, shall happily undergo the trial of Purgatory, in order to ascend the sky.

Without these allowances, how is it possible, we modern wits should ever have an opportunity to introduce our collections, listed under so many thousand heads of a different nature; for want of which, the learned world would be deprived of infinite delight, as well as instruction, and we ourselves buried beyond redress, in an inglorious and undistinguished oblivion ?

From such elements as these, I am alive to behold the day, wherein the corporation of authors, can outvie all its brethren in the guild. A happiness derived to us, with a great many others, from our Scythian ancestors; among whom the number of pens was so infinite, that the Grecian eloquence had no other way of expressing it, than by saying,

*Herodot. L. 4.

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*

that

that in the regions, far to the north, it was hardly possible for a man to travel, the very air was so replete with feathers.

The necessity of this digression, will easily excuse the length; and I have chosen for it as proper a place, as I could readily find. If the judicious reader can assign a fitter, I do here impower him to remove it into any other corner he pleases. And so I return with great alacrity to pursue a more important concern,

SECT. VIII.

A TALE OF A TUB.

THE learned Æolists* maintain the original cause of all things to be wind, from which principle this whole universe was at first produced, and into which it must at last be resolved; that the same breath, which had kindled, and blew up the flame of nature, should one day blow it out:

Quod procul à nobis flectat fortuna gubernans.

This is what the adepti understand by their anima mundi; that is to say, the spirit, or breath, or wind of the world; for, examine the whole system by the particulars of nature, and you will find it not to be disputed. For whether you please to call the forma informans of man, by the name of spiritus, animus, afflatus, or anima; what are all these but

All pretenders to inspiration whatsoever.

several