Page:A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style.djvu/52

8 But, my Lord, the fairest Diamonds are rough till they are polished, and the purest Gold must be run and washed, and sifted in the Oar. We are untaught by Nature, and the ﬁnest Qualities will grow wild and degenerate, if the Mind is not formed by Discipline, and cultivated with an early Care. In some Persons, who have run up to Men without a liberal Education, we may observe many great Qualities darken'd and eclips'd; their Minds are crusted over like Diamonds in the Rock, they flash out sometimes into an irregular Greatness of Thought, and betray in their Actions an Rh