Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/70

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56
The PRESENT STATE

There are, it is true, several societies in this country, which are chiefly calculated to promote natural knowlege. The elector of Hanover has established one at Gottingen, at an expence of not less than an hundred thousand pound. This university has already pickled monsters, and dissected live puppies without number. Their transactions of this kind have been published in the learned world at proper intervals, since their institution; and will, it is hoped, one day give them a just reputation. Had the fourth part of the immense sum above mentioned, been given in proper rewards to genius, in some neighbouring countries, it would have rendered the name of the donor immortal, and added to the real interests of society.

But