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114. 19., May 22, 1750.

Dum te causidicum, dum te modo rhetora fingis,
 * Et non decernis, Taure, quid esse velis,

Peleos et Priami transit, vel Nestoris, ætas;
 * Et serum fuerat jam tibi desinere.

Eja, age, rumpe moras, quo te spectabimus usque?
 * Dum quid sis dubitas, jam potes esse nihil.

To rhetorick now, and now to law inclin'd, Uncertain where to fix thy changing mind; Old Priams age or Nestors may be out, And thou, O Taurus, still go on in doubt. Come then, how long such wav'ring shall we see? Thou may'st doubt on; thou now can'st nothing be.

T is never without very melancholy reflections, that we can observe the misconduct, or miscarriage, of those men, who seem by the force of understanding, or extent of knowledge, exempted from the general frailties of human nature, and privileged from the common infelicities of life. Though the world is crowded with scenes of calamity, we look upon the general mass of wretchedness with very little regard, and fix our eyes upon the state of particular persons, whom the eminence of their qualities marks out from the multitude; as in reading an account of a battle, we seldom reflect on the vulgar heaps of slaughter, but follow the hero with our whole attention, through all the varieties of his fortune, without a thought of the thousands that are falling round him.

With the same kind of anxious veneration I have for many years been making observations on the life of Polyphilus, a man whom all his Rh