known all that men of ordinary learning know upon
the subject, he would have known that of the remaining two or
three-and-thirty ascertained Etruscan words, some are of two--some of
three--some of four syllables--but not one of them all a monosyllable. Yet
thus ignorant even of the commonest rudiments of learning on his subject,
he takes it upon him to talk of men of real learning in the following
strain--

"That the language of Etruria has hitherto defied the laborious
investigations of the learned of Italy, is now on all hands admitted.
Passavi, Gori, and Landsi, have done something to obscure, but little
if any thing towards its elucidation. Nor have the German
investigators been more successful. Dr Lepsius has lately given an
account of the Eugubian tables, and Dr Grotefend a work on the
rudiments of the Umbrian tongue, and still the subject is as much at
sea as ever. These profound scholars have made no real impression--no
light has been elicited--the meaning of a single word has not been
obtained with any certainty. The solemn, learned, trifling, and
absurd speculations of Passavi, Gori, and Landsi, and their
followers, are now treated with deserved contempt. This is an age of
critical enquiry; commonplace twaddling, inane generalities, and
magniloquent essays and lectures, even if delivered by professors who
enjoy the happiness of presiding over Roman colleges, only excite
derision. Learned savans must now put forth reasonable and
intelligible postulates, and opinions must be supported by facts, or
they will only expose themselves to deserved contempt."--(Vol. i. p.
22.)

Swift himself could not hit the style of the literary quack more
perfectly. "I have considered the gross abuse of astrology in this
kingdom," says Mr Bickerstaff, "and upon debating the matter with myself,
I could not possibly lay the fault upon the art, but upon those gross
impostors who have set up to be the artists. I know several learned men
have contended that the whole is a cheat; and whoever hath not bent his
studies that way, may be excused for thinking so, when he sees in how
wretched a manner that noble art is treated by a few mean illiterate
traders between us and the stars; who import a yearly stock of nonsense,
lies, folly, and impertinence, which they offer to the world as genuine
from the planets, though they descend from no greater hei