having few ideas to vend of their own growth ,(lore their minds with crude unruminated fads andfentences; and hope to fupply, by bare memory,the want of imagination and judgment.
But thefe are in the two loweft forms. Thenext I fiiall mention are in one a little higher; inthe form of thofe who grow neither wifer norbetter by ftudy themfelves, but who enable othersto ftudy with greater eafe, and to purpofes moreufeful; who make fair copies of foul manufcripts,give the fignification of hard words, and take agreat deal of other grammatical pains. The obli-gation to thefe men would be great indeed, ifthey were in general able to do any thing better,and fubmitted to this drudgery for the fake of thepublic; as fome of them, it muft be owned withgratitude, have done, but not later, I think, thanabout the time of the refurredion of letters.When works of importance are preffing, generalsthemfelves may take up the pick-axe and thefpade; but in the ordinary courfe of things, whenthat preffing neceffity is over, fuch tools are leftin the hands deftined to ufe them, the hands ofcommon foldiers and peafants. I approve thereforevery much the devotion of a ftudious man at Chrift-Church, who was over-heard in his oratory en-tering into a detail with God , as devout perfonsare apt to do, and, amongft other particular thankf-givings , acknowledging the divine goodnefs infurnilhing the world with makers of Didionaries!Thefe men court fame as well as their betters, byfuch means as God has given them to acquire it:
B a