besides, it will ever be insisted on, that ’tis an easier Matter to
strike out bad Digressions, than it is to write good
Apologies.

One Word more, and then I have done. Since Mr. _Budgell_ has thought
fit to censure Mr. _de la Bruyere_, for troubling his Reader with
_Notes_, I think my self oblig’d, in order to justify both Mr. _de la
Bruyere_ and my self, to shew that this Censure is very unreasonable,
and very unjust.[D] Mr. _Budgell’s_ Words are as follow.

_Theophrastus_, at the Time he writ, referr’d to nothing but what
was well known to the meanest Person in _Athens_; but as Mr. _Bruyere_
has manag’d it, by hinting at too many _Grecian_ Customs, a modern
Reader is oblig’d to peruse one or two _Notes_, which are frequently
longer than the Sentence it self he wou’d know the meaning of. But if
those Manners and Customs, which _Theophrastus_ alludes to, were, in
his Time, well known to the meanest _Athenian_, it does not follow
that they are now so well known to a modern Reader.

[D: Preface to his Translation of _Theophrastus_.]

_Mr. _de la Bruyere’s_ Fault does not consist in having put _Notes_
to his Translation, but rather in not having put enough. When a
Translator of an antient Author intends to preserve the peculiar
Character of the Original, _Notes_ become absolutely necessary to
render the Translation intelligible to a modern Reader. The Learn’d
may pass them over; and those, for whom _Explanatory Notes_ are
chiefly designed, must not think it too much Trouble, to bestow a
second Reading on the Text, after they have given a First to the
Whole. This Trouble (if any thing ought to be call’d so that conveys