Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/168

 and Magazines frothy, pert, or absurd, they might find some pardon; but to be dull and dronish, is an encroachment on the prerogative of a folio.

pamphlets should be considered as pills to purge melancholly; they should be made up in our splenetic climate, to be taken as physic, and not so as to be used when we take it. Some such law should be enacted in the republic of letters, as we find take place in the house of commons. As no man there can shew his wisdom, unless first qualified by three hundred pounds a year, so none here should profess gravity, unless his work amounted to three hundred pages.

, by the power of one single monosyllable, our critics have almost got the victory over humour amongst us.