ΔΕΥΤΕΡΑΙ ΦΡΟΝΤΙΔΕΣ. SECOND THOUGHTS. HAVING in the courfe of the foregoing TRANSLATIONS had occafion to infpect and review this great Moral Satire, THE PURSUITS OF LITERATURE, more closely and critically than ufually falls to the lot of the Profeffion, whose time and attention is engroffed and diftracted by too many objects crowding upon them from all quarters of the ocean of Modern Literature; it may naturally be expected, that I fhould deliver my fentiments on the performance in the more independent character of a Reviewer, both of it and of the Reviewers themselves; which, as a Tranflator, I have endeavoured to give more general currency to, by removing the principal objection thereto, a mass of untranflated Quotation. The Author speaks rather flightingly of the Profeffion; and certainly they have not reviewed his work con amore. Still as a learned and in general judicious Court of Criticism, they are entitled to the thanks of the Public, and efpecially of fequeftered Students like myself, who find in their "little blue books," much ufeful, various and folid, and frequently novel information, condensed and concentrated into the smallest compafs; and whofe ever enlarging field of view, furnishes more accurate and critical information of Manners and Opinions, than can be procured elsewhere-they are indeed the best Literary Almanacks of the Times-and from which the awful and alarming and eventful Signs of the Times, may most accurately and authentically be collected, from their curious Extracts of the Publications that come under their cognizance; more faithfully, perhaps, than from their own Decifions, which fometimes are too ftrongly tinctured by the spirit of their fect or party. The BRITISH CRITIC corps of Reviewers, fhrewdly fufpect the Satirift to be no Etonian, as he profeffes, from the obvious impolicy of narrowing the field of curious enquiry, which may lead to his being unkennelled; and also, from a few internal marks in his compofition, known only to Adepts bred in that School. Nor is it likely, |