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in literary subjects; our countrymen, adhering to the absurd doctrine of utility, are loth to apply with equal diligence to all subjects; for instance, a common reviewer would not bestow equal minuteness of attention on the wings and abdomen of a bee, as on the fate of a nation. How different a German, who will employ as profound research, in investigating the various members of a fly, as the powers and qualities of the human understanding and heart; this is, indeed, a minuteness of inquiry, in which I vouchsafe to copy the Germans, both in criticism and in original composition, as you may have observed in various reviews, which bear themselves to be mine, and also in my other writings; but most of all in "my essay upon cats," including my scheme for improving their moral habits, and teaching them to be more attentive to decency