Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/167

 able trifling, which, if I may so express it, often deceives us into instruction. Dry reasoning, and dull morality, have no force with the wild fantastic libertine. He must be met with smiles, and courted with the allurements of gaiety. He must be taught to believe, that he is in pursuit of pleasure, and be surprized into reformation. The finest sentiment, and the most weighty truth, may put on a pleasing face, and it is even virtuous to jest when serious advice might be disgusting. But instead of this, the most trifling performance among us now, assumes all the didactic stiffness of wisdom. The most diminutive son of fame, or of famine, has his we and his us, his firstlys and his secondlys as methodical, as if bound in cow-hide, and closed with clasps of brass. Were these Monthly Reviews