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Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/135

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Of POLITE LEARNING.
121

CHAP. X.

Of the encouragement of learning.

There is nothing authors are more apt to lament, than want of encouragement from the age. Whatever their differences in other respects may be, they are all ready to unite in this complaint, and each indirectly offers himself as an instance of the truth of his assertion.

The beneficed divine, whose wants are only imaginary, expostulates as bitterly as the poorest author, that ever snuffed his candle with finger and thumb. Should interest or good fortune, advance the divine to a bishopric, or the poor son ofParnassus