iquity; and although he has made
a capricious complaint of a defective memory, we cannot but wish the
complaint had been more real; for we discover in his works such a
gathering of knowledge that it seems at times to stifle his own energies.
Montaigne was censured by Scaliger, as Addison was censured by Warburton;
because both, like Socrates, smiled at that mere erudition which consists
of knowing the thoughts of others and having no thoughts of our own. To
weigh syllables, and to arrange dates, to adjust texts, and to heap
annotations, has generally proved the absence of the higher faculties.
When a more adventurous spirit of this herd attempts some novel discovery,
often men of taste behold, with indignation, the perversions of their
understanding; and a Bentley in his Milton, or a Warburton on a Virgil,
had either a singular imbecility concealed under the arrogance of the
scholar, or they did not believe what they told the public; the one in his
extraordinary invention of an interpolating editor, and the other in his
more extraordinary explanation of the Eleusinian mysteries. But what was
still worse, the froth of the head became venom, when it reached the
heart.

Montaigne has also been censured for an apparent vanity, in making himself
the idol of his lucubrations. If he had not done this, he had not
performed the promise he makes at the commencement of his preface. An
engaging tenderness prevails in these _naive_ expressions which shall not
be injured by a version. "Je l'ay voue a la commodite particuliere de mes
parens et amis; a ce que m'ayans perdu (ce qu'ils out a faire bientost)
ils y puissent retrouver quelques traicts de mes humeurs, et que par ce
moyen ils nourrissent plus entiere et plus vifue la conoissance qu'ils out
eu de moi."

Those authors who appear sometimes to forget they are writers, and
remember they are men, will be our favourites. He who writes from the
heart, will write to the heart; every one is enabled to decide on his
merits, and they will not be referred to learned heads, or a distant day.
"Why," says Boileau, "are my verses read by all? it is only because they
speak truths, and that I am convinced of the truths I write."

Why have some of our fine writers interested more than others, who
have not displayed inferior talents? Why is Addison still the first
of our essayists? he has sometimes been excelled in criticisms more
philosophical, in topics more interesting, and in diction more c