A DISCOURSE Concerning the Confufion of Languages АТ BABE L; Proving it to have been miraculous, from the Effential Difference between them, contrary to the Opinion of Monf. Le Clerc, and others. With an ENQUIRY into the PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE, Printed for S. AUSTEN at the Angel and Bible in St. Paul's Church-Yard; and W. BowYER, in White-Fryars. MDCCXXX. [Price One Shilling.] HE News which you tell me, that we shall at laft fee your noble Collection of Lord's Prayers in more Languages, and more exactly copy'd, than any Collectiyet appeared, is very agreeable: And I cannot but congratulate you for the Applaufe which you will meet withal from competent on which has B competent Judges upon that Account. I fay from competent Judges, for from others you must expect either to be cenfured for taking a great deal of useless Pains, or not to be regarded, which is almoft equally grievous to an ingenuous Mind. The Bulk of Men, as well of those who are, as of those who would pafs for Scholars, measure Learning by the immediate and visible Utility which it brings along with it; and tho' it was Ignoramus in the Play who faid he ftudied only Artes parcas & lucrofas, yet in Truth the Difeafe fpreads a great deal farther, and you fhall very rarely fee a Scholar that will fet a great Value upon any Part of Learning in which he himself has made no Proficiency. The Divine afks the Mathematician, who is drawing Diagrams and making long and intricate Calculations to find out the Powers and Properties of fome nameless Curve, cui bono is all this? What good will it do you or any Man elfe to know the Area of this Superficies, or the Ratio which it bears to another which you have been defcribing but just before? Do you think that what you expect to find will answer the Pains, and Study, and Time which you spend about it? The Mathematician asks him in Requital, what good it will do him or any Man elfe, to know the Opinion of this obfcure Father, or that perplexed Schoolman? The Chronologer shall spend Months in fixing the AEra of fuch a City in Syria, or of fuch a Kingdom in Thrace or Pontus; and when when he has done, fcarce a hundred Men perhaps in Europe will read what he has writ The Geographer labours to ascertain the Situation and Bounds of a City or Countrey, named two or three Times in fome dark Author, and perhaps no where else in all Antiquity; and when he has done it, how few care whether there was ever fuch a City, or fuch an Author that mentions it? The Aftronomer wafts his Health in making Obfervations in Order to perfect the Catalogue, and determine the Latitude of the fix'd Stars; and tho' it is poffible that he may meet with fome more Applause than the Gentlemen I laft named, yet how very few are there who will, or can profit by his Labours? Thofe that cannot, will comfort themfelves as the Man did, who was told that a certain Performance of his was bald and jejune, and wanted Metaphors and other Ornaments of Rhetoric to set it off, Poffumus vivere fine illis. And the Critic, becaufe he fets up for a better Judgment, or at least for using it to better Purpose than other Men, in determining the true Reading, or explaining the Difficulties which are to be met with in any Paffage of an ancient Author, must expect to be cenfured (if not derided) by the Generality of his Readers, who are inwardly angry that he should pretend to fee farther than themselves into the Senfe and Elegancy of the Books they read. The Succus Loliginis, and the Erugo mera which Horace complains of, the Moth and Ruft of B 2 Envy |
