Excerpt from The British Essayists, Vol. 17: With Prefaces, Historical and Biographical There is, in my opinion, great reason for suspect ing, that they sometimes take advantage of this reverential modesty, and impose upon rustic under standings with a false Show of universal intelligence for I do not find that they are willing to own them selves ignorant of any thing, or that they dismiss any inquirer with a positive and decisive answer. The court, the city, the park, and exchange, are to those men of unbounded observation equally famil iar, and they are alike ready to tell the hour at which stocks will rise, or the ministry be changed. A short residence at London entitles a man to knowledge, to wit, to politeness, and to a despotic and dictatorial power of prescribing to the rude mul titude, whom he condescends to honour with a bien nial visit, yet, I know not well upon what motives I have lately found myself inclined to cavil at this prescription, and to doubt whether it be not, on some occasions, proper to withhold our veneration, till we are more authentically convinced of the merits of the claimant. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.