wo great _mischiefs_; an incapacity
to be _taught what he doth not know_, or to be _advised when he thinks
amiss_; and moreover, to this _inconvenience_, that he must never
_hear his faults but from his adversaries_; for those who are willing
to be reputed _friends_ must either not advertise what they see amiss,
or incommode themselves.

"But, you will ask, what need he thus torment himself? What need of
pity? If _he have hopes_ to be admitted the _sole dictator in
philosophy_, civil and natural, in schools and pulpits, and to be
owned as the only _magister sententiarum_, what would he have more?

"True, _if he have_; but what _if he have not_? That he _had_ some
hopes of such an honour, he hath not been sparing to let us know, and
was providing against the _envy_ that might attend it (_nec deprecabor
invidiam, sed augendo, ulciscar_, was his resolution); but I doubt
these hopes are at an end. He did not find (as he expected) that the
_fairies and hobgoblins_ (for such he reputes all that went before
him) did vanish presently, upon the first appearance of his
_sunshine_: and, which is worse, while he was on the one side guarding
himself against _envy_, he is, on the other side, unhappily
_surprised_ by a worse enemy, called _contempt_, and with which he is
less able to grapple.

"I forbear to mention (lest I might seem to reproach that age which I
reverence) the _disadvantages_ which he may sustain by his old age.
'Tis possible that time and age, in a person somewhat _morose_, may
have riveted faster that preconceived opinion of his own worth and
excellency beyond others. 'Tis possible, also, that he may have
_forgotten_ much of what once he knew. He may, perhaps, be sometimes
more _secure_ than _safe_; while trusting to what he thinks a firm
foundation, his footing fails him; nor always so vigilant or
quicksighted as to discern the _incoherence_ or _inconsequence_ of his
own discourses; unwilling, notwithstanding, to make use of the eyes of
other men, lest he should seem thereby to disparage his own; but
certainly (though his _will_ may be as good as ever) his _parts_ are
less vegete and nimble, as to _invention_ at least, than in his
younger days.

"While he had endeavoured only to _raise an expectation_, or put the
world in hopes of what great things he had in hand (_to render all
philosophy as clear and certain as Euclid's Elements_), if he had then
_died_, it might, perhaps, have been thought by some that the