Justice_, but he has lately miscarried in the Good Opinion of the World,
only by Printing some Essays which are a Master-piece--in _Nonsense_.

It is a more difficult matter to get a Name by a _Perfect Composure_,
than to make an _indifferent_ one valued by that Reputation a Man has
already got in the World.

There are some things which admit of no _mediocrity_; such as _Poetry_,
_Painting_, _Musick and Oratory_--What Torture can be greater than to
hear Doctor F---- declaim a flat Oration with formality and Pomp, or
D---- read his Pyndaricks with all the Emphasis of a _Dull Poet_.

We have not as yet seen any excellent Piece, but what is owing to the
Labour of one single Man: _Homer_, for the purpose, has writ the
_Iliad_; _Virgil_, the _Æneid_; _Livy_ his _Decads_; and the _Roman_
Orator his Orations; but our _modern several Hands_ present us often
with nothing but a _Variety of Errors_.

There is in the Arts and Sciences such a _Point of Perfection_, as there
is one of _Goodness_ or _maturity_ in Fruits; and he that can find and
relish it must be allowed to have a _True Tast_; but on the contrary, he
that neither perceives it, nor likes any thing on this side, or beyond
it, has but a defective Palate. Hence I conclude that there is a bad
_Taste_ and a _good_ one, and that the disputing about _Tastes_ is not
altogether unreasonable.

The Lives of _Heroes_ have enricht _History_ and History in requital has
embellished and heightened the Lives of _Heroes_, so that it is no easie
matter to determine which of the two is more beholden to the other:
either _Historians_, to those who have furnished them with so great and