S792* on a course of reading. - 127 



and bring the waste of desultory reading within the 

 cultivated regions of science, and to add to that store 

 of knowledge, derived from the labours of men who 

 make study their businefs, the fiuirs to be expected 

 from the improved leisure of those who make read- 

 ing their amusement. 



No adept in rhetoric, I have little hope of influence 

 with this order of loungers ; argument would stun 

 them to a deaf inattention, so I despair of succefs by 

 convincing their reason ; and, without the powers 

 of persuasion, I want the means of inlisting their 

 pafsions in the cause, and insinuating that they would 

 find more solid pleasure and real variety in a regular 

 course of useful reading, than in the disgusting lus- 

 ciousnefs of a novel, or the pert gofsiping of a news- 

 paper ; that, instead of being teased with a continual 

 prurience of imagination, which it is impofsible to 

 satisfy, and an irritable anxiety about trifles, which 

 increases by indulgence, they would strengthen their 

 minds without benumbing their feelings, and gratify 

 their curiosity while they were collecting rational 

 information ; and that, instead of their lives remain- 

 ing a burthen on themselves, they might, by this 

 means, not only enhance their own welfare, but add 

 to that of society. I presume not officiously to in- 

 trude my advice upon tlie profefsionally studious, 

 but rathei soUicit their afsistance and correction in 

 wliat is deemed advantageous to the diflfusion of 

 knowledge. 



I am one of those who have heen in the practice of 

 employing their leisure in reading for instruction as 

 Weil as amusement. It is to readers of a like cast 



