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of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves. This gives a great Author something like a prospect of eternity, but at the same time deprives him of those other advantages which Artists meet with. The Artist finds greater returns in profit, as the Author in fame.

If writings are thus durable, and may pass from age to age throughout the whole course of time, how careful should an Author be of committing any thing to print that may corrupt posterity, and poison the minds of men with vice and error? Writers of great talents, who employ their parts in propagating immorality, and seasoning vicious sentiments with wit and humour, are to be looked upon as the pests of society, and the enemies of man kind: They leave books behind them (as it is said of those who die in distempers which breed an ill-will towards their own species) to scatter infection and destroy their posterity. They act the counterparts of Confucius or Socrates; and seem to have been sent into the world to deprave human nature, and sink it into the condition of brutality.

note No: 169. /note Half the misery of human life might be extinguished, would men alleviate the general curse they lie under, by mutual offices of compassion, benevolence, and humanity. There is nothing therefore which we ought more to encourage in ourselves and others, than the disposition of mind which in the English