y, or the hermetic philosophy; of
those who have written on apparitions, visions, &c.; an historical
treatise on the secret of confession, &c.; besides those "Pieces
Justificatives," which constitute some of the most extraordinary
documents in the philosophy of history. His manner of writing secured
him readers even among the unlearned; his mordacity, his sarcasm, his
derision, his pregnant interjections, his unguarded frankness, and often
his strange opinions, contribute to his reader's amusement more than
comports with his graver tasks; but his peculiarities cannot alter the
value of his knowledge, whatever they may sometimes detract from his
opinions; and we may safely admire the ingenuity, without quarrelling
with the sincerity of the writer, who having composed a work on _L'Usage
des Romans_, in which he gaily impugned the authenticity of all history,
to prove himself not to have been the author, ambidexterously published
another of _L'Histoire justifiee contre les Romans_; and perhaps it was
not his fault that the attack was spirited, and the justification dull.

This "Methode" and his "Tablettes Chronologiques," of nearly forty other
publications are the only ones which have outlived their writer;
volumes, merely curious, are exiled to the shelf of the collector; the
very name of an author merely curious--that shadow of a shade--is not
always even preserved by a dictionary-compiler in the universal charity
of his alphabetical mortuary.

The history of this work is a striking instance of those imperfect
beginnings, which have often closed in the most important labours. This
admirable "Methode" made its first meagre appearance in two volumes in
1713. It was soon reprinted at home and abroad, and translated into
various languages. In 1729 it assumed the dignity of four quartos; but
at this stage it encountered the vigilance of government, and the
lacerating hand of a celebrated _censeur_, Gros de Boze. It is said,
that from a personal dislike of the author, he cancelled one hundred and
fifty pages from the printed copy submitted to his censorship. He had
formerly approved of the work, and had quietly passed over some of these
obnoxious passages: it is certain that Gros de Boze, in a dissertation
on the Janus of the ancients in this work, actually erased a high
commendation of himself,[149] which Lenglet had, with unusual courtesy,
bestowed on Gros de Boze; for as a critic he is most penurious of
panegyric, and ther