of it. In the World it will certainly meet with all these. Set it therefore to View amongst several of your Acquaintance first, who may furvey the Argument on all Sides, and one may happen to suggest a Correction which is entirely neglected by others; and be sure to yield yourself to the Dictates of true Griticism, and just Censure, wheresoever you meet with them; nor let a Fondness for what you have written, blind your Eyes against the Discovery of your own Miftakes.

WHEN an Author defires a Friend to revise his Work, it is too frequent a Practice to disallow almost every Correction which a judicious Friend shall make; he apologizes for this Word, and the other Expreffion; he vindicates this Sentence, and gives his Reasons for another Paragraph, and scarce ever submits to Correction; and this utterly discourages the Freedom that a true Friend would take, in pointing out our Mistakes. Such Writers who are so full of themselves, may go on to admire their own uncorrect Performances, and expose their Works and their Follies to the World without Pity *.

HO

HORACE, in his Art of Poetry, talks admirably well on this Subject:

Quintilio fi quid recitares, corrige, fodes,
Hoc, aiebat, & boc; melius te poffe negares
Bis terque expertum frustra; delere jubebat,
Et malè tornatos incudi reddere verfus.
Si defendere delictum, quàm vertere, malles;
Nulla ultrà Verbum, aut operam infumebat

inanem,

Quin fine rivali teque & tua folus amares.

Let good Quintilius all your Lines revise,
And he will freely say, Mend this and this;
Sir, I have often try'd, and try'd again,
I'm fure I can't do better, 'tis in vain :
Then blot out ev'ry Word, or try once more,
And file these ill-turn'd Verses o'er and o'er;
But if you feem in Love with your own

Thought,

More eager to defend, than mend, your Fault, He says no more, but lets the Fop go on, And Rival-free admire his lovely own.

CREECH.

IF you have not the Advantage of Friends to survey your Writings, then read them over yourself, and all the Way confider what will be the Sentence and Judgment of all the various Characters of Mankind upon them: Think what one of your own Party would fay, or what would be the Sense of

an

an Adversary: Imagine what a curious or a malicious Man, what a captious or an envious Critick, what a vulgar or a learned Reader would object, either to the Matter, the Manner, or the Style: And be sure and think with yourself, what you yourself could say against your own Writing, if you were of a different Opinion, or a Stranger to the Writer: And by these Means you will obtain some Hints, whereby to correct and improve your own Work, and to guard it better against the Censures of the Publick, as well as to render it more useful to that Part of Mankind for whom you chiefly defign it.

CHAP. VIII.

Of Writing and Reading Controverfies.

W

SECT. Ι.

Of Writing Controverfies,

HEN a Person of

good Sense writes

on any controverted Subject, he will generally bring the strongest Arguments that

that are ufually to be found for the Support of his Opinion; and when that is done he will reprefent the most powerful Objections against it in a fair and candid Manner, giving them their full Force; and at last will put in such an Answer to those Objections as he thinks will diffipate and diffolve the Force of them: And herein the Reader will generally find a full View of the Controversy, together with the main Strength of Argument on both Sides.

WHEN a good Writer has fet forth his own Opinion at large, and vindicated it with its fairest and strongest Proofs, he shall be attacked by fome Pen on the other Side of the Question; and if his Opponent be a wise and sensible Writer, he will shew the best Reasons why the former Opinions cannot be true; i. e. he will draw out the Objections against them in their fulleft Array, in order to destroy what he supposes a miftaken Opinion; and here we may reafon. ably suppose that an Opponent will draw up his Objections against the supposed Error in a brighter Light and with stronger Evidence than the first Writer did, who propounded his Opinion which was contrary to those Objections.

IF in the third Place the first Writer anfwers his Opponent with Care and Diligence, and maintains his own Point against the Objections which were raised in the best ManManner; the Reader may then generally presume, that in these three Pieces he has a compleat View of the Controverfy; together with the most solid and powerful Arguments on both Sides of the Debate.

But when a fourth and fifth and fixth Volume appears in Rejoinders and Replies, we cannot reafonably expect any great Degrees of Light to be derived from them; or that much further Evidences for Truth should be found in them: And it is sufficiently evident from daily Experience, that many Mischiefs attend this Prolongation of Controverfies among Men of Learning, which for the most Part do Injury to the Truth, either by turning the Attention of the Reader quite away from the original Point to other Matters, or by covering the Truth with a Multitude of occafional Incidents and Perplexities, which serve to bewilder rather than guide a faithful Enquirer.

SOMETIMES, in these latter Volumes, the Writers on both Sides will hang upon little Words and occafional Expressions of their Opponent in order to expose them, which have no necessary Connexion with the grand Point in View, and which have nothing to do with the debated Truth.

SOMETIMES they will spend many a Page in vindicating their own Character, or their own little Sentences or accidental Expreffions