Diſtance, cannot afford us the leaſt Light.
With regard to the French Academy, how great a Service would they do to Literature, to the Language, and the Nation, if, inſtead of publiſhing a ſet of Compliments annually, they would give us new Editions of the valuable Works written in the Age of Lewis the Fourteenth, purged from the ſeveral Errors of Diction which are crept into them. There are many of theſe Errors in Corneille and Moliere, but thoſe in La Fontaine are very numerous. Such as could not be corrected, might at leaſt be pointed out. By this Means, as all the Europeans read thoſe Works, they would teach them our Language in its utmoſt Purity, which, by that Means, would be fix'd to a laſting Standard; and valuable French Books being then printed at the King's Expence, would prove one of the moſt glorious Monuments the Nation could boaſt. I have been told that Boileau formerly made this Propoſal, and that it has ſince been
