--This is the Censure which an ingenious Author, under the feign’d
Name of _Vigneul Marville_, has pass’d upon Mr. _de la Bruyere’s_
Style. However, I think my self oblig’d in Justice to inform the
Reader, that Mr. _Coste_, in his Defence of Mr. _de la Bruyere_, has
endeavour’d to prove that this Censure is ill grounded. But I will not
pretend to decide in a Case of this Nature. Matters relating to Style
are the nicest Points in Learning: The greatest Men have grosly err’d
on this Subject. I only declare my own Opinion on the Matter, that Mr.
_de la Bruyere_’s Style appears to me forc’d, affected, and improper
for Characteristic Writings. Several ingenious _French_ Gentlemen, who
have themselves writ with Applause in this Language, entertain the
same Sentiments, and have ingenuously confess’d to me, that they could
never read ten Pages together of Mr. _de la Bruyere_, without feeling
such an Uneasiness and Pain, as arises from a continued Affectation
and a perpetual Constraint. But the Reader is still left free. To form
a right Judgment on Correctness is an easy Matter by the ordinary
Rules of Grammar, but to do the same concerning the Turn and Air, and
peculiar Beauties of Style, depends on a particular Taste: They are
not capable of being prov’d to those who have not this Taste, but to
those who have it, they are immediately made sensible by a bare
pointing out.

The running Title which Mr. _de la Bruyere_ has given to his Book
does, by no Means, square with the several Parts of it. With Relation
to my present Purpose I observe, that, strictly speaking, this
Performance is, but in Part, of the Characteristic-Kind. The
Characters, which are interspers’d in it, being reducible to a very
narrow Compass, and the main Body of it consisting of miscellaneous
Reflexions. And these are not confin’d, as is pretended, only to the