Letters on Several Subjects (Volume 2)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1781 edition. Excerpt: ...His objeft evidently was to make that fon happy; and he confi-dered vice as the means. This was only wrong judgement, and a falfe calculation. A celebrated book produces frequently very great effedts in a country Lord Chefterfield's rank gave celebrity to his took as foon as it appeared; and, I think, it would have been as dangerous a publication as -ver was fcen in England, if fortunately the poifon did not-contain its own antidote. The morals-are too bad: they revolt. The reader is is fhockcd with feeing a father act al-mofl as pandar to his fon. And if he has any degree of underftanding or knowledge, he foon gets a contempt for his author, beca'ufe he. fees he is a flight man, . He has written with elegance, and he certainly had parts; but they were neither of the firft, fecond, third, nor fixth order (i); and I will venture to affirm, that if his book had not been nobly born, it would not have had the fmalleft fuc-cefs. But birth is a real advantage, though few fhllofopbers think fo. (i) I fpeak only from what appears in nil Letters. Can Can any man Ihew me a finglc page in his four volumes which announce a fuperior writer?-I will venture to fay, he cannot, one. Can any man mention a fingle letter, which, being tranflated.into a foreign language, and appearing without a n-ame, will fupport itfclf at Paris, at Berlin, or at-Rome, by the weight and depth of its fenfe, 'by the 'beauty of its images, by the elevation-or de-licacy of its fentiments, or, by that weakeft of all prctenfions to literary merit, by the 'brilliancy of its ivit? I ihall venture to anfwer, not a letter in his whole collection. t His principles of politenefs are unexceptionable; and ought to be adopted by all young men of fafhion; but they arc C arc known to every child...