st which the general
voice of the publick has exclaimed, or which their own incongruity
immediately condemns, and which, I suppose, the author himself would
desire to be forgotten. Of the rest, to part I have given the highest
approbation, by inserting the offered reading in the text; part I have
left to the judgment of the reader, as doubtful, though specious; and
part I have censured without reserve, but, I am sure, without bitterness
of malice, and, I hope, without wantonness of insult.

It is no pleasure to me, in revising my volumes, to observe how much
paper is wasted in confutation. Whoever considers the revolutions of
learning, and the various questions of greater or less importance, upon
which wit and reason have exercised their powers, must lament the
unsuccessfulness of inquiry, and the slow advances of truth, when he
reflects that great part of the labour of every writer is only the
destruction of those that went before him. The first care of the builder
of a new system, is to demolish the fabricks which are standing. The
chief desire of him that comments an author, is to show how much other
commentators have corrupted and obscured him. The opinions prevalent in
one age, as truths above the reach of controversy, are confuted and
rejected in another, and rise again to reception in remoter times. Thus
the human mind is kept in motion without progress. Thus sometimes truth
and errour, and sometimes contrarieties of errour, take each other's
place by reciprocal invasion. The tide of seeming knowledge, which is
poured over one generation, retires and leaves another naked and barren;
the sudden meteors of intelligence, which for awhile appear to shoot
their beams into the regions of obscurity, on a sudden withdraw their
lustre, and leave mortals again to grope their way.

These elevations and depressions of renown, and the contradictions to
which all improvers of knowledge must for ever be exposed, since they
are not escaped by the highest and brightest of mankind, may, surely, be
endured with patience by criticks and annotators, who can rank
themselves but as the satellites of their authors. How canst thou beg
for life, says Homer's hero to his captive, when thou knowest that thou
art now to suffer only what must another day be suffered by Achilles?

Dr. Warburton had a name sufficient to confer celebrity on those who
could exalt themselves into antagonists, and his notes have raised a
clamour too loud to be di