Jump to content

Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/93

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Of POLITE LEARNING.
79

If there be any, however, among these writers, who being bred gentlemen and scholars, are obliged to have recourse to such an employment for subsistence, I wish them one more suited to their inclinations; but for such who, wholly destitute of education and genius, indent to the press, and turn mere book-makers, they deserve the severest censure. These add to the sin of criticism the sin of ignorance also. Their trade is a bad one, and they are bad workmen in the trade.

When I consider those industrious men as indebted to the works of other authors for a precarious subsistence, when I see them coming down at stated intervals to rummage the bookseller's compter for materials to work upon; it raises a smile, tho' mixed with pity. It reminds me of ananimal