gree of
preference for this employment;) while men of learning, as they are
called, (that is to say, of mere learning,) aiming to get above that
natural ease and freedom which distinguish this, (and indeed every other
kind of writing,) when they think they have best succeeded, are got
above, or rather beneath, all natural beauty.'

Then, stiffened and starched [let me add] into dry and indelectable
affectation, one sort of these scholars assume a style as rough as
frequently are their manners; they spangle over their productions with
metaphors; they tumble into bombast: the sublime, with them, lying in
words, and not in sentiment, they fancy themselves most exalted when
least understood; and down they sit, fully satisfied with their own
performances, and call them MASCULINE. While a second sort, aiming at
wit, that wicked misleader, forfeit all title to judgment. And a third,
sinking into the classical pits, there poke and scramble about, never
seeking to show genius of their own; all their lives spent in
common-place quotation; fit only to write notes and comments upon other
people's texts; all their pride, that they know those beauties of two
thousand years old in another tongue, which they can only admire, but not
imitate, in their own.

And these, truly, must be learned men, and despisers of our insipid sex!

But I need not mention the exceptions which my beloved friend always made
[and to which I subscribe] in favour of men of sound learning, true
taste, and extensive abilities; nor, in particular, her respect even to
reverence for gentlemen of the cloath; which, I dare say, will appear in
every paragraph of her letters wherever any of the clergy are mentioned.
Indeed the pious Dr. Lewen, the worthy Dr. Blome, the ingenious Mr.
Arnold, and Mr. Tompkins, gentlemen whom she names, in one article of her
will, as learned divines with whom she held an early correspondence, well
deserved her respect; since to their conversation and correspondence she
owed many of her valuable acquirements.

Nor were the little slights she would now-and-then (following, as I must
own, my lead) put upon such mere scholars [and her stupid and pedantic
brother was one of those who deserved those slights] as despised not only
our sex, but all such as had not had their opportunities of being
acquainted with the parts of speech, [I cannot speak low enough of such,]
and with the dead languages, owing to that contempt which some affect for
w