even the friends of Mr. Davis will scarcely continue to ascribe my contempt to my fear.

RISMS.

The first part of his critical volume might ad- PLAGIAmit, though it did not deserve, any particular reply. But the easy, though tedious compilation, which fills the remainder,* and which Mr. Davis has produced as the evidence of my shameful plagiarisms, may be set in its true light by three or four short and general reflections.

I. Mr. Davis has disposed, in two columns, the passages which he thinks proper to select from my two last chapters, and the corresponding passages from Middleton, Barbeyrac, Beausobre, Dodwell, &c. to the most important of which he had been regularly guided by my own quotations. According to the opinion which he has conceived of literary property, to agree is to follow, and to follow is to steal. He celebrates his own sagacity with loud and reiterated applause, and declares, with infinite facetiousness, that if he restored to every author the passages which Mr. Gibbon has purloined, he would appear as naked as the proud and gaudy daw in the fable, when each bird had plucked away its own plumes. Instead of being angry with Mr. Davis for the parallel which he has extended to so great a length, I am under some obligation to his industry for the copious proofs which he has furnished the reader, that my representation of some of the most important facts of ecclesiastical antiquity is supported by the autho

Davis, p. 168-274.

"Plinius igitur anno Christi CENTESIMO DECIMO Bithyniam intravit." Pagi, tom. i. p. 100.

I will be more indulgent to my adversary than he has been to me: I will admit that he has looked into Pagi; but I must add, that he has only looked into that accurate chronologer. To rectify the errors, which, in the course of a laborious and original work, had escaped the diligence of the Cardinal, was the arduous task which Pagi proposed to execute and for the sake of perspicuity, he distributes his criticisms according to the particular dates, whether just or faulty, of the Chronology of Baronius himself. Under the year 102, Mr. Davis confusedly saw a long argument about Pliny and Bithynia, and without condescending to read the author whom he pompously quotes, this hasty critic imputes to him the opinion which he had so laboriously destroyed.

My readers, if any readers have accompanied me thus far, must be satisfied, and indeed satiated, with the repeated proofs which I have made of the weight and temper of my adversary's weapons. They have, in every assault, fallen dead and lifeless to the ground: they have more than once recoiled, and dangerously wounded the unskilful hand that had presumed to use them. I have now examined all the misrepresentations and inaccuracies, which even for a moment could perplex the ignorant or deceive the credulous: the few imputations which I have neglected are still more pal pably false, or still more evidently trifling, and

I even the friends of Mr. Davis will scarcely continue to ascribe my contempt to my fear.

RISMS.

The first part of his critical volume might ad- PLAGIAmit, though it did not deserve, any particular reply. But the easy, though tedious compilation, which fills the remainder, and which Mr. Davis has produced as the evidence of my shameful plagiarisms, may be set in its true light by three or four short and general reflections.

· I. Mr. Davis has disposed, in two columns, the passages which he thinks proper to select from my two last chapters, and the corresponding passages from Middleton, Barbeyrac, Beausobre, Dodwell, &c. to the most important of which he had been regularly guided by my own quotations. According to the opinion which he has conceived of literary property, to agree is to follow, and to follow is to steal. He celebrates his own sagacity with loud and reiterated applause, and declares, with infinite facetiousness, that if he restored to every author the passages which Mr. Gibbon has purloined, he would appear as naked as the proud and gaudy daw in the fable, when each bird had plucked away its own plumes. Instead of being angry with Mr. Davis for the parallel which he has extended to so great a length, I am under some obligation to his industry for the copious proofs which he has furnished the reader, that my representation of some of the most important facts of ecclesiastical antiquity is supported by the autho

Davis, p. 168-274.

rity or opinion of the most ingenious and learned of the modern writers. The public may not, perhaps, be very eager to assist Mr. Davis in his favourite amusement of depluming me. They may think, that if the materials which compose my two last chapters are curious and valuable, it is of little moment to whom they properly belong. If my readers are satisfied with the form, the colours, the new arrangement which I have given to the labours of my predecessors, they may perhaps consider me not as a contemptible thief, but as an honest and industrious manufacturer, who has fairly procured the raw materials, and worked them up with a laudable degree of skill and success.

II. About two hundred years ago, the court of Rome discovered that the system which had been erected by ignorance must be defended and countenanced by the aid, or at least by the abuse, of science. The grosser legends of the middle ages were abandoned to contempt, but the supremacy and infallibility of two hundred Popes, the virtues of many thousand Saints, and the miracles which they either performed or related, have been laboriously consecrated in the Ecclesiastical Annals of Cardinal Baronius. A theological barometer might be formed, of which the Cardinal and our countryman Dr. Middleton should constitute the opposite and remote extremities, as the former sunk to the lowest degree of credulity, which was compatible with learning, and the latter rose to the highest pitch of scepticism, in anywise consistent with religion. The intermediate gradations would be

filled by a line of ecclesiastical critics, whose rank has been fixed by the circumstances of their temper and studies, as well as by the spirit of the church or society to which they were attached. It would be amusing enough to calculate the weight of prejudice in the air of Rome, of Oxford, of Paris, and of Holland; and sometimes to observe the irregular tendency of papists towards freedom, sometimes to remark the unnatural gravitation of protestants towards slavery. But it is useful to borrow the assistance of so many learned and ingenious men, who have viewed the first ages of the church in every light, and from every situation. If we skilfully combine the passions and prejudices, the hostile motives and intentions, of the several theologians, we may frequently extract knowledge from credulity, moderation from zeal, and impartial truth from the most disingenuous controversy. It is the right, it is the duty of a critical historian to collect, to weigh, to select the opinions of his predecessors; and the more diligence he has exerted in the search, the more rationally he may hope to add some improvement to the stock of knowledge, the use of which has been common to all.

III. Besides the ideas which may be suggested by the study of the most learned and ingenious of the moderns, the historian may be indebted to them for the occasional communication of some passages of the ancients, which might otherwise have escaped his knowledge or his memory. In the consideration of any extensive subject, none will pre

tend