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difficult kind and a more fenfible Ufe, embrace the Knowledge of Nature and the Improvements of the Arts. We may presume that fuch profound, fuch uninterrupted Pursuits as thefe, fuch exact Calculations, fuch refin'd Discoveries, fuch extenfive and exalted Views, will, at laft, produce fomething that may prove of Advantage to the Universe. Hitherto, as we have observ'd together, the most useful Discoveries have been made in the most barbarous Times. One wou'd conclude, that the Business of the most enlightned Ages and the most learned Bodies, is, to argue and debate on Things which were invented by ignorant People. We know exactly the Angle which the Sail of a Ship is to make with the Keel, in order to its failing better; and yet Columbus discover'd America, without having the leaft Idea of the Property of this Angle However I am far from inferring from hence, that we are to confine our felves merely to a blind Practice, but happy it were, wou'd Naturalifts

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ralifts and Geometricians unite, as much as poffible, the Practice with the Theory.

STRANGE, but fo it is, that those Things which reflect the greatest Honour on the human Mind, are frequently of the leaft Benefit to it! A Man who understands the four Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic, aided by a little good Senfe, shall amass prodigious Wealth in Trade, fhall become a Sir Peter Delmé, a Sir Richard Hopkins, a Sir Gilbert Heathcot, whilft a poor Algebraift fpends his whole Life in fearching for aftonishing Properties and Relations in Numbers, which at the fame time are of no manner of Use, and will not acquaint him with the Nature of Exchanges. This is very ncarly the Cafe with most of the Arts; there is a certain Point, beyond which, all Refearches ferve to no other Purpofe, than merely to delight an inquifitive Mind. Thofe ingenious and uselefs Truths may be compar'd to Stars, which, by being plac'd at too great a Distance,

Distance, cannot afford us the leaft Light.

WITH regard to the French Academy, how great a Service would they do to Literature, to the Language, and the Nation, if, instead of publishing à fet of Compliments annually, they would give us new Editions of the valuable Works written in the Age of Lewis the Fourteenth, purged from the feveral Errors of Diction which are crept into them. There are many of these Errors in Corneille and Moliere, but those in La Fontaine are very numerous. Such as could not be corrected, might at least be pointed out. By this Means, as all the Europeans read thofe Works, they would teach them our Language in its utmoft Purity, which, by that Means, would be fix'd to a lafting Standard; and valuable French Books being then printed at the King's Expence, would prove one of the moft glorious Monuments the Nation could boaft. I have been told that Boileau formerly made this Propofal, and that it has fince been R 2 revived

revived by a * Gentleman eminent for his Genius, his fine Sense, and just Taste for Criticism; but this Thought has met with the Fate of many other useful Projects, of being applauded and neglected.

L'Abbé de Rothelin of the French Academy.

FINTS.

A

LETTER

Concerning the

Burning of ALTENA,

As related in the

HISTORY OF CHARLES XII.

KING of SWEDEN.

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