Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/34

 losophy being excited, the reasoner, when destitute of experiment, had recourse to theory, and gave up what was useful for refinement.

, sophists, grammarians, rhetoricians, and commentators, now began to figure in the literary commonwealth. In the dawn of science, such are generally modest, and not entirely useless; their performances serve to mark the progress of learning, tho' they seldom contribute to its improvement. But as nothing but labour is required in making proficients, in their respective departments; so neither the satyr, nor the contempt of the wise, though Socrates was of the number, nor the laws levelled at them by the state, though Cato was in the legislature, could prevent their approaches. Possessed of all the advantages of unfeeling dullness, laborious, insen-