Page:Modern Literature Volume 3 (1804).djvu/171

bestowed upon blockheads, and besides, clergy who are not able to rise by their abilities, and have not interest to compensate the deficiency, have a never-failing resource in becoming masters of academies. Another reservoir, that for many years has diffused plentiful supplies of authors, is dissent from the established church. Scarcely a dissenting minister is to be found, who is not a professed author. Of these, two were very able and learned men, and a few others respectable, but much the greater number are far from having any pretensions to genius and erudition, and most of them, whether able or weak, the votaries of visionary reveries, instead of solid and substantial wisdom; and no one class has been so productive of incapable, illiterate, and trifling authors, as the non-conformists. In addition to these, were your sentimental writers, who regarded