Page:Catalogue of five hundred celebrated authors of Great Britain, now living (1788).djvu/3



THE world is here presented with a volume, so new in its design, that, if, like certain authors, we were to indulge to the whispers of vanity, we might confider ourselves as the inventors of a new science, and boldly rank with the Aristotles, the Lockes, and the Newtons of literature. We might tell, what has been told an hundred times before, the story of Columbus's egg, and. generously inform our readers, that no discovery, however inestimable, appears difficult, after it has been made. But we are not willing, for our own sakes, to over-rate the merit we possess. It will be of little service to us with a discerning public; and it will be of material injury to us as individuals, by checking in us the ardour of pursuit, and