The latter have endeavoured to please the age by falling in with them, and encourage them in their fashionable views and false notion of things.

It would have been a jest, some time since, for a man to have asserted that anything witty could be said in praise of a married state, or that devotion and virtue were any way necessary to the character of a fine gentleman.

Bickerstaff ventured to tell the town that they were a parcel of fops, fools and coquettes; but in such a manner as even pleased them, and made them more than half-inclined to believe that he spoke truth.

Instead of complying with the false sentiments and vicious tastes of the age--either in morality, criticism, or good breeding--he has boldly assured them that they were altogether in the wrong; and commanded them, with an authority which perfectly well became him, to surrender themselves to his arguments for virtue and good sense.

It is incredible to conceive the effect his writings have had on the town; how many thousand follies they have either quite banished, or given a very great check to! how much countenance they have added to virtue and religion! how many people they have rendered happy, by showing them it was their own fault if they were not so! and, lastly, how entirely they have convinced our young fops and young fellows of the value and advantages of learning! He has indeed rescued it out of the hands of pedants and fools, and discovered the true method of making it amicable and lovely to all mankind.