[ S3 ] 



Lord Bacon has from Plato's allufion confidered the under- 

 ftanding of every individual man as a cavern which makes the ap- 

 pearances of things vary much from the reality. From the diverfity 

 of appearances of the fame objedl in different caverns the dif- 

 ferent nature of the caverns themfelves may be difcovered. 

 Thus it is we talk of the various lights in which the fame fubjedls 

 appear to different writers, and froin their different modes of 

 treating them the charadleriflic differences of their own under- 

 ftandings obvioufly appear. When you fee a v/riter always 

 confidering each particular fubjedl as a part of fomething 

 more extenfive, dealing out general aphorifms and fearching 

 after univerfal certainties, you have an evident mark of a fpiric 

 towering above and looking down upon his fubjedl, imperious 

 and commanding. When you fee a writer colledling every 

 thing within individual bounds, taking up the fubjedl no higher 

 than itfelf, and careful not to digrefs or go beyond it, you have 

 3 mark of a mind humble, minute and timid. When you find, 

 no affertion without a quotation to enforce it, you may af- 

 cerlain of the author that his intelledt is fhackled to authority, 

 and. that he probably fees little merit but in learning. When, 

 you find thoughts perpetually digrefling from each other by 

 trivial and irrelevant affociations, you may pronounce of the, 

 writer that his habits are mean, his judgments flender, and his. 

 undcrflanding incapable of reafoning and argument. By thefe 

 criteria we would form this decifion on his underftanding from 

 his converfation, and by the fame we may equally forrn it from 

 bis writings. 



Though 



