RELIGIOUS principles are alfo a blemish in any polite compofition, when they rife up to fuperftition, and intrude themselves into every fentiment, however remote from any connection with religion. "Tis no excufe for the poet, that the customs of his country had burthened life with fo many religious ceremonies and obfervances, that no part of it was exempt from that yoke. It must be for ever ridiculous in PETRARCH to compare his mistress, LAURA, to JESUS CHRIST. Nor is it lefs ridiculous in that agreeable libertine, BOCCACE,, very seriously to give thanks to GOD ALMIGHTY, and the ladies, for their affiftance in defending him against his. enemies.. VOL. I. ESSAY I. OF COMMERCE. T HE greatest part of mankind may be divided into two claffes; that of Shallow thinkers, who fall fhort of the truth; and that of abftruse thinkers, who go beyond it. The latter clafs are by far the most uncommon; and I may add, by far the most useful and valuable. They fuggeft hints, at leaft, and start difficulties, which they want, perhaps, skill to purfue; but which may produce very fine discoveries, when handled by men who have a more just way of thinking. At worst, what they fay is uncommon; and if it should coft fome pains to comprehend it, one has, however, the pleasure of hearing fomething that is new. An author is little to be valued, who tells us nothing but what we can learn from every coffeehouse converfation. All people of Shallow thought are apt to decry even those of folid understanding, as abftrufe thinkers, and metaphyficians, and refiners; and never will allow any thing to be just which is beyond their own weak conceptions. There are some cafes, I own, where an extraordinary refinement affords a strong prefumption of falsehood, and where no reasoning is to be trusted but what is natural and easy. When a man deliberates concerning his conduct in any particular affair, and forms schemes |