The Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq (Volume 3) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ADVERTISEMENT. THE Editor of thefe volumes claims no other merit than that of introducing them to the public. Neither the plan, nop much of the execution of it, is his own. It is now about five-and-twenty years fines the outlines of the undertaking were (ketched, m conjundion with the late Mr. Tonsok, by a Writer of diftinguifhed tafte and talents; who was prevented from purfuing it by avocations of a far different and m-ore important nature. It has been eonfiderably altered, and carried much farther than was at fkft intended; but all the information which was obtained by the aftive zeal, and well-directed enquiries, which that gentleman made among men of the firft eminence in the world of letters, though fometimes fuper- feded On indubitable authorities, has been faithfully preferred, and is distinguished by a figna- ture, in the accumulated colleciion, which the reader has now before him. Of the Original Papers it may be fufficierit to fey, in the emphatic words of Johnson, that ' they comprize ptecepts of criticifm, failles of '' invention, defcriptions of life, and leftures of Vol.- I. a " morality, '" morality; they em ploy, wit in the caufe, of ." ttuth, and make elegance fubferyient to " piety; they have now for more than half a " century fupplied the Englifh nation, in a great . " meafure, with principles of fpeculation, and " rules of practice, and given their authors a " claim to be mentioned amongft the benefac- '..tors of mankind. . ., .-.; ..: 4 ' ' /-i v ij-V . i: .., )' To teach the minuter decencies and in- " ferior duties," to regulate the practice; "', f daily converfation, to correct thofe de- .' pravities which are rather ridiculous than, eti-; ." minal, and remove thofe grievances which, if . . they produce no laf...