Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/90

 ed, since it encreases as the love of learning is diffused. It cannot be remedied by rule, for every prescription encreases the disease, since the man who writes against the critics, is obliged to add himself to the number. Other depravations in the republic of letters, such as affectation in some popular writer, leading others into vicious imitation; political struggles in the state; a depravity of morals among the people; ill directed encouragement, or no encouragement from the Great, these have been often found to cooperate in the decline of literature; and it has sometimes declined, as in modern Italy, without them; but an encrease of criticism has always portended a decay. Of all misfortunes, therefore, in the commonwealth of letters, this of judging from rule, and not from feeling, is the most severe. At such a tribunal, no work of ori-