Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/12

 vi PREFACETO fo much as named, though he has mentioned others of whom nothing is known, but that they were the occafion or the fubjecl: of fome uielefs controverfy, the very terms of which few underftarid, and the merits of which a fmall part even of thofe few are clifpofed to examine,, Bayle's Lives are indeed nothing more than a, vehicle for his criticifm ; and his work feems to, have been chiefly the tranfcript of a voluminous common-place book, in which he had inferted his own remarks on the various authors he had read, and gratified his peculiar turn of min$ by difcuffing their opinions and correcting their miftakes. Jt is therefore rather a mifcel- lany of critical and metaphyfical fpeculationSj than, a fyftem of Biography, The General Dictionary, as it includes Bayle, is fo far liable to the fame objections : it is in- deed augmented with other articles ; but they alfo are written in Bayle's manner, and for that reafon the work upon the whole is not much better adapted to general 1 ufe. There aro many redundances, and yet there are many defers ; and there is befides an objection of more weight though of another kind, the work confift- ing of no lefs than ten volumes in folio, for which the purchafermiifl pay more than f0 many pounds, The