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Butler's treasures of knowledge appear proportioned to his expence: whatever topick employs his mind, he fhews himfelf qualified to expand and illuftrate it with all the acceffories that books can furnish he is found not only to have travelled the beaten road, but the bye-paths of literature; not only to have taken general furveys, but to have examined particulars with minute infpection.

If the French boaft the learning of Rabelais, we need not be afraid of confronting them with Butler.

But the most valuable parts of his performance are thofe which retired study and native wit cannot fupply. He that merely makes a book from books may

be

be useful, but can fcarcely be great.. Butler had not fuffered life to glide befide him unseen or unobferved. He had watched with great diligence the operations of human nature, and traced the effects of opinion, humour, intereft, and paffion. From fuch remarks proceeded that great number of fententious diftichs which have paffed into converfation, and are added as proverbial axioms to the general ftock of practical knowledge.

When any work has been viewed and admired, the first question of intelligent curiofity is, how was it performed? Hudibras was not a hafty effufion; it was not produced by a fudden tumult of imagination, or a short paroxyfm of

violent

violent labour. To accumulate fuch a

mafs of fentiments at the call of accidental defire, or of fudden neceffity, is beyond the reach and power of the most active and comprehenfive mind. I am informed by Mr. Thyer of Manchester, the excellent editor of this author's reliques, that he could fhew fomething like Hudibras in profe. He has in his poffeffion the common-place book, in which Butler repofited, not fuch events or precepts as are gathered by reading; but fuch remarks, fimilitudes, allufions, affemblages, or inferences, as occafion prompted, or meditation produced; thofe thoughts that were generated in his own mind, and might be usefully applied to fome future purpose. Such

is the labour of those who write for

immortality.

But human works are not eafily found without a perishable part. Of the ancient poets every reader feels the mythology tedious and oppreffive. Of Hudibras the manners, being founded on opinions, are temporary and local, and therefore become every day lefs intèlligible and lefs ftriking. What Cicero fays of philofophy is true likewife of wit and humour, that "time effaces "the fictions of opinion, and confirms "the determinations of Nature." Such manners as depend upon ftanding relations and general paffions are co-extended with the race of man; but thofe modifications of life, and peculiarities

of

of practice, which are the progeny of error and perverfenefs, or at beft of fome accidental influence or tranfient perfuafion, muft perish with their pa

rents.

Much therefore of that humour which tranfported the last century with merriment is loft to us, who do not know the four folemnity, the fullen fuperftition, the gloomy morofeness, and the ftubborn fcruples of the ancient Puritans; or, if we knew them, derive our information only from books, or from tradition, have never had them before our eyes, and cannot but by recollection and study understand the lines in which they are fatirifed. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life;

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