Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/39

, Aulus Gellius, Pedianus, Boethius, and an hundred others, to be acquainted with whom, might shew much reading, and but little judgment; these, I say, made choice each of an author, and delivered all their load of learning on his back; shame to our ancestors, many of their works have reached our times entire, while Tacitus himself has suffered mutilation.

In a word, the commonwealth of literature, was at last wholly overrun by these studious triflers. Men of real genius, were lost in the multitude, or, as in a world of fools, it were folly to aim at being an only exception, obliged to conform to every prevailing absurdity of the times. Original productions seldom appeared, and learning, as if grown superanuated, bestowed all its panegyric upon