Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/445

 they succeed, and even Pity and Praise if they fail. The true Raillery should be a Defence for good and vertuous Works, and should only intend the Derision of extravagant, and the Disgrace of vile and dishonourable Things. This kind of Wit ought to have the Nature of Salt, to which it is usually compared; which preserves and keeps sweet the good and sound Parts of all Bodies, and only frets, dries up, and destroys those Humours which putrify and corrupt.

This pleasant but unprofitable sort of Men being thus dismiss'd with this fair Admonition; it now follows in the last Place, that I examine the universal Interest of the English Nation, and consider what Effect the Works of the Royal Society are like to have upon it, by what means their Labours may serve to encrease our Advantages, and correct our Imperfections. In the Entrance of this Subject there are so many things presented to my Thoughts, which are worthy to be declared to my Countrymen, that I rather think it ought to be largely managed by itself, than to be huddled up in the end of this Treatise: and certainly there is scarce any matter that more deserves to be handled by the best of our English Wits, than the Interest of their Country. I do therefore take the Freedom to recommend it to their Hands; and to beseech them to raise their Thoughts from slighter Businesses, from unmanly Flatteries, or Vanities of Love, or useless Burlesque, to this grave and this noble Argument; and to remember that if Themistocles was in the right, when he preferr'd the making of a small City great before the playing on a Fiddle, then certainly it is the bravest Employment for a worthy Mind, to endeavour to make a great Kingdom greater.

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