440 UNIVERSAL ERUDITION; 



IV. Moft countries of Europe, where the arts 

 are cultivated, abound in theie days with lite- 

 rary journals ; but thefe are very far from 

 bearing all thofe marks of merit which are necef- 

 fary to render them inftrudtive, entertaining and 

 valuable. Thefe journals are no longer wrote 

 by the ancient authors of the Acta Eruditorum 

 of Leipfig : there is now no Bayle, nor any one 

 like him, concerned in writing them. The mo- 

 dern journalilts are commonly men of little abi- 

 lity, who, being unable to produce any work 

 worth printing, let themfelves out to fome book- 

 feller, and then fet up for dictators of Parnafliis; 

 fummons all new authors to appear before their 

 tribunal, praife or blame, and finally determine 

 their merit, with a matchlefs effrontery. To what 

 judges are the Montefquieus, Chefterfields, 

 Voltaires, Wolffs, Bernoullis, Eulers, Hallers, 

 and many other truly great men, obliged to fub- 

 mit ! M. Voltaire has given, in his mifcellanies 

 of literature and philofophy, Advice to a Journalift: 

 which they ought every one of them to be able to 

 repeat memoriter. They Ihould well remem- 

 ber, that a literary gazette is like one of politics, 

 in which we look for facts and events that hap- 

 pen daily in the world, and not for the crude 

 remarks of a gazetteer. The public alone has a 

 right to judge of the fecret caufes of an event, 

 and of the wifdom or folly, the equity or injufticc 

 of the actors, as well as of the value of a book, 

 and merit of its author \ and does not require to 

 have it pointed out by a Journalift. 



V. But 



