it. Some would haze it to be an atheistical book, and some that
it was a libel on the government; for one or other of which
reasons they all refused to print it. That it had been likewise
shown to the R--l Society, but they shook their heads, saying,
there was nothing in it wonderful enough for them. That, hearing
the gentleman was gone to the West-Indies, and believing it to be
good for nothing else, he had used it as waste paper. He said I
was welcome to what remained, and he was heartily sorry for what
was missing, as I seemed to set some value on it.

I desired him much to name a price: but he would receive no
consideration farther than the payment of a small bill I owed
him, which at that time he said he looked on as so much money
given him.

I presently communicated this manuscript to my friend parson
Abraham Adams, who, after a long and careful perusal, returned it
me with his opinion that there was more in it than at first
appeared; that the author seemed not entirely unacquainted with
the writings of Plato; but he wished he had quoted him sometimes
in his margin, that I might be sure (said he) he had read him in
the original: for nothing, continued the parson, is commoner
than for men now-a-days to pretend to have read Greek authors,
who have met with them only in translations, and cannot conjugate
a verb in mi.

To deliver my own sentiments on the occasion, I think the author
discovers a philosophical turn of thinking, with some little
knowledge of the world, and no very inadequate value of it.
There are some indeed who, from the vivacity of their temper and