make us all weep by consent, without
any more ado than to pull out our Handkerchiefs to wipe off our Tears.
And if it were once agreed amongst us not to resist those tender
impressions of _Pity_, I dare engage that we would soon be convinc'd
that by frequenting the Play-house we run less danger of being put to
the expence of Tears, than of being almost frozen to death by many a
cold, dull insipid jest.

We must make it our main Business and Study to _think_ and _write well_,
and not labour to submit other People's Palates and Opinions to our own;
which is the greater difficulty of the two.

One should serve his time to learn how to make a _Book_, just as some
men do to learn how to make a watch, for there goes something more than
either Wit or Learning to the setting up for an _Author_. A _Lawyer_ of
this Town was an able, subtle and experienc'd Man in the way of his
Business, and might for ought I know, have come to be _Lord Chief
Justice_, but he has lately miscarried in the Good Opinion of the World,
only by Printing some Essays which are a Master-piece--in _Nonsense_.

It is a more difficult matter to get a Name by a _Perfect Composure_,
than to make an _indifferent_ one valued by that Reputation a Man has
already got in the World.

There are some things which admit of no _mediocrity_; such as _Poetry_,
_Painting_, _Musick and Oratory_--What Torture can be greater than to
hear Doctor F---- declaim a flat Oration with formality and Pomp, or
D---- read his Pyndaricks with all the Emphasis of a _Dull Poet_.

We have not as yet seen any excellent Piece, but what is owing to the
Labour of one single Man: _Homer_, for the purpose, has writ the
_Iliad_; _Virgil_, the _AEneid_; _Livy_ his _Decads_; and the _Roman_
Orator his Orations; but our _modern several Hands_ present us often
with nothing but a _Variety of Errors_.

There is in the Arts and Sciences such a _Point of Perfection_, as there
is one of _Goodness_ or _maturity_ in Fruits; and he that can find and
relish it must be allowed to have a _True Tast_; but on the contrary, he
that neither perceives it, nor likes any thing on this side, or beyond
it, has but a defective Palate. Hence I conclude that there is a bad
_Taste_ and a _good_ one, and that the disputing about _Tastes_ is not
altogether unreasonable.

The Lives of _Heroes_ have enricht _History_ and History in requital has
embellished and heightened the Lives of _Heroes_, so that it is no easie
matt