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One would conclude, that the business of the most enlightened ages and the most learned bodies, is, to argue and debate on things which were invented by ignorant people. We know exactly the angle which the fail of a fhip is to make with the keel, in order to its failing better; and yet Columbus difcovered America, without having the leaft idea of the property of this angle: However I am far from inferring from hence, that we are to confine ourselves merely to a blind practice; but, happy it were, would naturalifts and geometricians unite, as much as poffible, the practice with the theory.

STRANGE, but fo it is, that those things which reflect the greatest honour on the human mind, are frequently of the least benefit to it! A man, who understands the four fundamental rules of arithmetic, aided by a little good fenfe, fhall amass prodigious wealth in trade, fhall become a Sir Peter Delmé, a Sir Richard Hopkins, a Sir Gilbert Heathcote, whilft a poor algebraist spends his whole life in fearching for astonishing properties and relations in numters, which at the fame time are of no manner of use, and will not acquaint him with the nature of exchanges. This is very nearly the cafe with most of the arts; there is a certain point, beyond which, all refearches ferve to no other purpose,

than

than merely to delight an inquifitive mind. Those ingenious and ufelefs truths may be compared to itars, which, by being placed at too great a distance, cannot afford us the leaft light.

WITH regard to the French Academy, how great a fervice would they do to literature, to the language, and the nation, if, inftead of publifhing a fet of compliments annually, they would give us new editions of the valuable works written in the age of Lewis the fourteenth, purged from the feveral errors of diction which are crept into them. There are many of these errors in Corneille and Moliere, but thofe in La Fontaine are very numerous. Such as could not be corrected, might at least be pointed out. By this means, as all the Europeans read those works, they would teach them our language in its utmoft purity, which, by that means, would be fixed to a lasting standard; and valuable French books being then printed at the king's expence, would prove one of the most glorious monuments the nation could boast. I have been told that Boileau formerly made this propofal, and that it has fince been revived by a* gentleman eminent for his genius, his fine fenfe, and just taste for criticifm ; but this thought has met with the fate of many other useful projects, of being applauded and neglected.

L'Abbé de Rothelin of the French Academy.

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Paris, April 25, 1733.

THE great difficulty we have in

France of getting books from Holland, is the reason why the ninth tome of the Bibliotheque Raifonnée came but late to my hands. And I will obferve by the way, that if the reft of the journal is equal to the pieces I have perufed in it, it is a misfortune for our men of letters in France, that they are not acquainted with that work.

IN page 496, part II. of the ninth tome abovementioned, I found a letter in which I am accused of afperfing the city of Hamburgh in the Hiftory of Charles the twelfth..

A few days fince one Mr. Richey of Hamburgh, a fcholar and a man of merit, having honoured me with a visit, revived

the

the complaint I just now mentioned in the name of his fellow-citizens.

HERE follows the relation I gave, and what I myself am obliged to declare. In the heat of the unhappy war which made fo dreadful a havock in the North, the Counts of Steinbock and of Welling, the Swedish Generals, formed, Anno 1713, in the very city of Hamburgh, a refolution to burn Altena, a trading city, and fubject to the Danes; for the commerce of this city began to flourish fo much, that the Hamburghers grew a little jealous of it.

THIS refolution was executed unmercifully in the night of the ninth of January. These generals lay in Hamburgh that very night; they lay in it the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth; and dated from the last mentioned city the letters they wrote to clear themfelves from the impu tation of being the authors of fo barbarous a catastrophe.

'Tis befides certain, and the Hamburghers themselves do not deny it, that the gates of their city were fhut against feveral of the inhabitants of Altena, against old men, and women near their time, who came to implore an afylum; and that feveral of these unhappy wretches expired under the walls of Hamburgh, frozen with cold, and oppreffed with mifery, at the fame time that their country was burnt to

alh.s.

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I was obliged to infert thefe particulars in the hiftory of Charles the twelfth. One of the Perfons, who furnished me with materials, declares in his letter, in the most pofitive terms, that the Hamburghers had given Count Steinbock a fum of money, in order to engage him to deftroy Altena, as being their rival in trade.

I did not however adopt fo grievous an accufation. What reafon foever I may have to be convinced of the great depravity of mankind, I yet was never fo credulous with regard to crimes. I have combated, and that efficaciously, more than one calumny; and am even the only man who dared to juftify the memory of Count Piper, by arguments, at the time that all Europe flandered him by conjectures.

INSTEAD therefore of following the account which had been communicated to me, I contented myself with relating, That it was reported, fome Hamburghers had given a sum of money fecretly to Count Steinbock. This report became univerfal, and was founded on appearances. An hiftorian is allowed to infert reports as well as facts, and when he publishes a general report, an opinion, merely as an opinion, and not as truth, he is neither refponsible for it, nor ought to be accused in any man

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