It is necessary to the success of flattery, that it be accommodated to
particular circumstances or characters, and enter the heart on that side
where the passions stand ready to receive it. A lady seldom listens with
attention to any praise but that of her beauty; a merchant always
expects to hear of his influence at the bank, his importance on the
exchange, the height of his credit, and the extent of his traffick: and
the author will scarcely be pleased without lamentations of the neglect
of learning, the conspiracies against genius, and the slow progress of
merit, or some praises of the magnanimity of those who encounter poverty
and contempt in the cause of knowledge, and trust for the reward of
their labours to the judgment and gratitude of posterity.

An assurance of unfading laurels, and immortal reputation, is the
settled reciprocation of civility between amicable writers. To raise
_monuments more durable than brass, and more conspicuous than
pyramids_, has been long the common boast of literature; but, among
the innumerable architects that erect columns to themselves, far the
greater part, either for want of durable materials, or of art to dispose
them, see their edifices perish as they are towering to completion, and
those few that for a while attract the eye of mankind, are generally
weak in the foundation, and soon sink by the saps of time.

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human
hopes, than a publick library; for who can see the wall crowded on every
side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditation, and accurate
inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue, and preserved only to
increase the pomp of learning, without considering how many hours have
been wasted in vain endeavours, how often imagination has anticipated
the praises of futurity, how many statues have risen to the eye of
vanity, how many ideal converts have elevated zeal, how often wit has