Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/68

 kind they enjoy. Their assiduity is unparallelled; and did the learned of this country employ half those hours on study, which they bestow on reading, we might be induced to pity, as well as praise, their painful preheminence. But guilty of a fault, too common to great readers, they write through volumes, while they do not think through a page. Never fatigued themselves, they think the reader can never be weary; so they drone on, saying all that can be said on the subject, not selecting what may be advanced to the purpose. Were angels to write books, they would never write folios.

let the Germans have their due; if they are often a little dull, no nation alive assumes a more laudable solemnity, or better understands all the little decorums