d, he says, a deficient judgment; for
Domitian's ill qualities are much better exposed, when it is known that
he was mean-spirited enough to restore to the dignity of Empress the
prostitute of a player.

Abridgers, Compilers, and Translators, are now slightly regarded; yet to
form their works with skill requires an exertion of judgment, and
frequently of taste, of which their contemners appear to have no due
conception. Such literary labours it is thought the learned will not be
found to want; and the unlearned cannot discern the value. But to such
Abridgers as Monsieur Le Grand, in his "Tales of the Minstrels," and Mr.
Ellis, in his "English Metrical Romances," we owe much; and such writers
must bring to their task a congeniality of genius, and even more taste
than their original possessed. I must compare such to fine etchers after
great masters:--very few give the feeling touches in the right place.

It is an uncommon circumstance to quote the Scriptures on subjects of
_modern literature_! but on the present topic the elegant writer of the
books of the Maccabees has delivered, in a kind of preface to that
history, very pleasing and useful instructions to an _Abridger_. I shall
transcribe the passages, being concise, from Book ii. Chap. ii. v. 23,
that the reader may have them at hand:--

"All these things, I say, being declared by Jason of Cyrene, in _five
books_, we will assay to _abridge_ in one volume. We will be careful
that they that will read may have _delight_, and that they that are
desirous to commit to memory might have _ease_, and that all into whose
hands it comes might have _profit_." How concise and Horatian! He then
describes his literary labours with no insensibility:--"To us that have
taken upon us this painful labour of _abridging_, it was not easy, but a
matter of _sweat_ and _watching_."--And the writer employs an elegant
illustration: "Even as it is no ease unto him that prepareth a banquet,
and seeketh the benefit of others; yet for the pleasuring of many, we
will undertake gladly this great pain; leaving to the author the exact
handling of every particular, and labouring to follow the _rules of an
abridgment_." He now embellishes his critical account with a sublime
metaphor to distinguish the original from the copier:--"For as the
master builder of a new house must care for the whole building; but he
that undertaketh to set it out, and paint it, must seek out fit things
for the adorning thereo