ill scarcely be pleased without lamentations of the neglect
of learning, the conspiracies against genius, and the slow progress of
merit, or some praises of the magnanimity of those who encounter poverty
and contempt in the cause of knowledge, and trust for the reward of
their labours to the judgment and gratitude of posterity.

An assurance of unfading laurels, and immortal reputation, is the
settled reciprocation of civility between amicable writers. To raise
_monuments more durable than brass, and more conspicuous than
pyramids_, has been long the common boast of literature; but, among
the innumerable architects that erect columns to themselves, far the
greater part, either for want of durable materials, or of art to dispose
them, see their edifices perish as they are towering to completion, and
those few that for a while attract the eye of mankind, are generally
weak in the foundation, and soon sink by the saps of time.

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human
hopes, than a publick library; for who can see the wall crowded on every
side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditation, and accurate
inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue, and preserved only to
increase the pomp of learning, without considering how many hours have
been wasted in vain endeavours, how often imagination has anticipated
the praises of futurity, how many statues have risen to the eye of
vanity, how many ideal converts have elevated zeal, how often wit has
exulted in the eternal infamy of his antagonists, and dogmatism has
delighted in the gradual advances of his authority, the immutability of
his decrees, and the perpetuity of his power?

_--Non unquam dedit
Documenta fors majora, quam frugili loco
Starent superbi_.

Insulting chance ne'er call'd with louder voice,
On swelling mortals to be proud no more.

Of the innumerable authors whose performances are thus treasured up in
magnificent obscurity, most are forgotten, because they never deserved
to be remembered, and owed the honours which they once obtained, not to
judgment or to genius, to labour or to art, but to the prejudice of
faction, the stratagem of intrigue, or the servility of adulation.

Nothing is more common than to find men whose works are now totally
neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries, as the
oracles of their age, and the legislators of science. Curiosity is
naturally excited, their volumes aft