to Mr. Powney, and inquired very eagerly whether
he had not more of the same manuscript? He produced about one hundred
pages, acquainting me that he had saved no more; but that the book was
originally a huge folio, had been left in his garret by a gentleman
who lodged there, and who had left him no other satisfaction for nine
months' lodging. He proceeded to inform me that the manuscript had been
hawked about (as he phrased it) among all the booksellers, who refused
to meddle; some alleged that they could not read, others that they could
not understand it. Some would haze it to be an atheistical book, and
some that it was a libel on the government; for one or other of which
reasons they all refused to print it. That it had been likewise shown to
the R--l Society, but they shook their heads, saying, there was nothing
in it wonderful enough for them. That, hearing the gentleman was gone
to the West-Indies, and believing it to be good for nothing else, he had
used it as waste paper. He said I was welcome to what remained, and he
was heartily sorry for what was missing, as I seemed to set some value
on it.

I desired him much to name a price: but he would receive no
consideration farther than the payment of a small bill I owed him, which
at that time he said he looked on as so much money given him.

I presently communicated this manuscript to my friend parson Abraham
Adams, who, after a long and careful perusal, returned it me with his
opinion that there was more in it than at first appeared; that the
author seemed not entirely unacquainted with the writings of Plato; but
he wished he had quoted him sometimes in his margin, that I might be
sure (said he) he had read him in the original: for nothing, continued
the parson, is commoner than for men now-a-days to pretend to have read
Greek authors, who have met with them only in translations, and cannot
conjugate a verb in mi.

To deliver my own sentiments on the occasion, I think the author
discovers a philosophical turn of thinking, with some little knowledge
of the world, and no very inadequate value of it. There are some indeed
who, from the vivacity of their temper and the happiness of their
station, are willing to consider its blessings as more substantial, and
the whole to be a scene of more consequence than it is here represented:
but, without controverting their opinions at present, the number of wise
and good men who have thought with our author are sufficient to k