Recapitulation. 427' 



of the age was not favourable to laborious and pa- 

 tient study. Few can be expected to devote them- 

 selves habitually to that kind of reading which re- 

 quires deep reflection, and long continued atten- 

 tion, amidst the solicitations of company and plea- 

 sure, and the thousand dissipating attractions which 

 an age of refinement, and of greatly extended in- 

 tercourse, presents. 



Another circumstance which has contributed to 

 characterize the eighteenth century, as an age of 

 superficial learning, is the unprecedented circula- 

 tion of Magazines, literary Journals, Abridgments, 

 Epitomes, &c. with which the republic of letters 

 has been deluged, particularly within the last forty 

 years. These have distracted the attention of the 

 student, have seduced him from sources of more 

 systematic and comprehensive instruction, and 

 have puffed up multitudes with false ideas of their 

 own acquirements. The mass of new, hastily 

 composed, and superficial works, have engrossed 

 the minds of by far the greater number of readers, 

 crowded out of view the stores of ancient learning, 

 and even many of the best works of the preceding 

 century, and taught too many to be satisfied with 

 the meagerness of modern compends and compi- 

 lations. It may be safely pronounced, that the 

 eighteenth century, not only with regard to the 

 treasures of Classic literature, but also with respect 

 to a knowledge of the best writers of all the pre- 

 ceding seventeen centuries, was retrograde rather 

 than progressive throughout the whole of its 

 course. 



An additional cause, unfavourable to deep and 

 sound erudition, is the nature of those employ- 

 ments which, in modern times, solicit the atten- 

 tion of mankind. In every age, a great majority 

 of men are destined to a laborious and active life. 

 But in the eighteenth century, the wonderful ex- 



