expressed in mouldring
Materials: Nature sinks under them, and is not able to support the Ideas
which are imprest upon it.

The Circumstance which gives Authors an Advantage above all these great
Masters, is this, that they can multiply their Originals; or rather can
make Copies of their Works, to what Number they please, which shall be
as valuable as the Originals themselves. This gives a great Author
something like a Prospect of Eternity, but at the same time deprives him
of those other Advantages which Artists meet with. The Artist finds
greater Returns in Profit, as the Author in Fame. What an Inestimable
Price would a _Virgil_ or a _Homer_, a _Cicero_ or an _Aristotle_ bear,
were their Works like a Statue, a Building, or a Picture, to be confined
only in one Place and made the Property of a single Person?

If Writings are thus durable, and may pass from Age to Age throughout
the whole Course of Time, how careful should an Author be of committing
any thing to Print that may corrupt Posterity, and poison the Minds of
Men with Vice and Error? Writers of great Talents, who employ their
Parts in propagating Immorality, and seasoning vicious Sentiments with
Wit and Humour, are to be looked upon as the Pests of Society, and the
Enemies of Mankind: They leave Books behind them (as it is said of those
who die in Distempers which breed an Ill-will towards their own Species)
to scatter Infection and destroy their Posterity. They act the
Counterparts of a _Confucius_ or a _Socrates_; and seem to have been
sent into the World to deprave human Nature, and sink it into the
Condition of Brutality.

I have seen some Roman-Catholick Authors, who tell us that vicious
Writers continue in Purgatory so long as the Influence of their Writings
continues upon Posterity: For Purgatory, say they, is nothing else but a
cleansing us of our Sins, which cannot be said to be done away, so long
as they continue to operate and corrupt Mankind. The vicious Author, say
they, sins after Death, and so long as he continues to sin, so long must
he expect to be punished. Tho' the Roman Catholick Notion of Purgatory
be indeed very ridiculous, one cannot but think that if the Soul after
Death has any Knowledge of what passes in this World, that of an immoral
Writer would receive much more Regret from the Sense of corrupting, than
Satisfaction from the Thought of pleasing his surviving Admirers.

To take off from the Severity of this Speculation, I shall