Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/19

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Of POLITE LEARNING.
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this may be asserted without the imputation of vanity, that he enters the lists with no disappointments to biass his judgment, nor will he ever reprove but with a desire to reform. The defects of his execution may be compensated by the usefulness of his design, his observations may be just, tho' his manner of expressing them should only serve as an example of the errors he undertakes to reprove.

If the present enquiry were a topick of speculative curiosity, calculated to fill up a few vacant moments in literary indolence, I should think my labour ill bestowed. To rank in the same despicable class with the dissertations, ænigma's, problems, and other periodical compilations with which even idleness is cloyed at present, is by no means my ambition. True learning and true morality are closely connected; to im-prove