are as great enemies to knowledge, as incapacity; for, in truth, what difference is there between a man who will not, and a man who cannot, be informed? This difference only, that the former is justly to be blamed, and the latter to be pitied. And yet how many are there, very capable of receiving knowledge, who, from laziness, inattention, and incuriousness, will not so much as ask for it, much less take the least pains to acquire it.
Our young English travellers generally distinguish themselves by a voluntary privation of all that useful knowledge for which they are sent abroad; and yet, at that age, the most useful knowledge is the most easy to be acquired; conversation being the book, and the best book, in which it is contained. [Jan. 2, 1752.]
The Drama.—I could wish there were a treaty
made between the French and the English theatres,
in which both parties should make considerable concessions.
The English ought to give up their notorious
violations of all the unities; and all their massacres,
racks, dead bodies, and mangled carcasses,
which they so frequently exhibit upon their stage.
The French should engage to have more action, and
less declamation; and not to cram and crowd things
together to almost a degree of impossibility, from a
