318 A Letter from Stephen Duck. 



" For 



Mr. Benjamin Kennicott, at 

 Wadham College, in 

 Oxford." 



1 return you many thanks for the valuable present of your Book, which I 

 received by the hands of Mr. Lillington.' I have read it once over, with 

 pleasure, and I have begun it a second time ; and a second time I am Edified 

 — h(Bc decies repetita placebit.- 



Your account of the Tree of Life, the Sabbath and Sacrifices are (sic) very 

 ingenious, and if you have not Demonstration, You have at least great 

 probability on Your Side. 



But I ought to be very careful how I give my opinion on matters so abstruse 

 and so much above the reach of my Capacity. For tho' (as you observe in 

 your obliging letter) there is some similitude in our lives, j-et ye parallel 

 will not hold in the point of Learning ; for you have been in that respect 

 much happier than I have been, who have never had the Advantage of such 

 a liberal Education as you are blest with : it being my misfortune to be a 

 Stranger to the University of which you are are an Ornament. However, I 

 shall not be wanting in diligence yet to improve myself : and as the Chief 

 Duties of Christianity (I mean those which are absolutely necessary to 

 salvation) be iu a narrow Compass, and are pretty obvious and plain, I will 

 do my best endeavour to recommend these in such manner as may excite 

 mankind to practise them ; which, if I can do, I shall think myself not 

 intirely useless to Society. 



And now, Dear Sir, I heartily congratulate you on your success and the 

 amazing progress you have made ; I sincerely wish that it may turn out to 

 the advantage of yourself in particular, as it must to the Benefit of Mankind 

 in general. 



When you come towa[rd] London the honour of seeing you here wo[uld] 

 be extremely grateful to 

 S' 



Yo' most oblig'd, 



humble Serv'-, 



S. DUCK. 

 Kew Green, in Surrey, 

 June 14, 1747. 



P.S. — I do not wonder to see Dr. Oliver among the Number of your 



' Probably Mr. G. Lillington, then a Wadham undergraduate, son of a 

 Dorset gentleman at Winfrith. The book was Keunicott's Dissertations, 

 1747, mentioned above. 



2 " Re-read a dozen times, the page will please." (From Horace's Art of 

 Foesy, line 365). Prof. Conington gave a somewhat different turn to the 

 original : — Of poems, he makes Horace say 



" One pleases straightway ; one, when it has passed 

 Ten times before the mind, will please at last." 



