short, fuck Nonsense, as Our Antiquaries are seldom guilty of for Propriety of Thoughts, without Propriety of Expression is such a Discovery, as is not easily laid hold of, except by such Hunters after Spectres and Meteors, as are forced to be content with the Froth and Scum of Learning, but have indeed nothing to shew of that deep Learning, which is the effect of recondite Studies. And there was a Gentleman, no les a Friend to polite Learning, but as good a judge of it as himself, "and who is also a Friend to Antiquities, who was hugely pleased with the Humour of his saying Your Antiquaries, being very ready to disclaim an Acquaintance with all such Wits, and who told me the Antiquaries, were the Men in all the World who most contemn'd Your Men of Sufficiency and Self-conceit. But here his Master Horace is quite flipt out of his Mind, whose Words are,
Rem tibi Socraticæ poterunt oftendere chartæ:
Verbaque provisam rem non invita sequentur.
Thus translated by my Lord Roscommon.
And when Philosophy directs your Choice.
To proper Subjects rightly understood,
Words from your Pen will naturally flow.
Horace's Sapere, and my Lord Roscommon's Proper Subjects rightly understood, I take to be the same as Propriety of Thought, and the non invita sequentur, naturally flowing, I take to import the Fitness and Propriety of Expression. I also gather from hence, thatthere
