Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/284

210 known it himself." What a formidable threat, and what a miserable performance! The stuff that he has brought there, is so shameful and scandalous, so inexcusable in a very school-boy, betrays such ignorance of the commonest rules of prosodia and syntax, that if he has but learning enough to know when he's confuted, (which is not everybody's case,) he may have the wisdom to take his leave of the press as long as he lives, for that part of learning.

[pp. cii–cxii]

Mr B. is pleased to bestow his next favour upon, whom he calls "an Italian , famous for his snarling faculty, and contradicting great men upon very slight grounds;" and he thinks "Balzac says very well of him that he was a public enemy." But whether somebody else will not be "infamous for his snarling faculty," we may predict from this very instance. This, as our modest author calls him, was one of the most ingenious, and judicious, and learned writers of his age; and his books have at this present such a mighty reputation that they are sold for their weight in silver