Doctor _Felton_ in Praise of Criticism tells us, with equal Elegance and Perspicuity, _If the Rules had not been given, we had not been troubled with_ many fewer _Writers:_ And in the Pursuit of his own excellent Work, he declares, _He has tempered the_ Briskness _of Thought with the Sedateness of Judgement._ The _French_ have their _Pensees Brusques_, but the Doctor could not fall so low as that. _Brusque_ signifying _blunt_, _rash_, and the like. This _Briskness_ is, I suppose, more agreeable to the Conception of a certain Bookseller, who being written to by a certain Squire for a _brisk History_, sent him by the next Carrier that of _Don Quixot_. This was thirty Years ago, before we were so well furnished with _brisk Histories_ as we have been since. I take _brisk_ in our Tongue to be to _lively_, as _pert_ is to _witty_: But I cannot depend on my own Judgement; the Translator of _Homer_ having used _Briskness_ in the same Sense as Doctor _Felton_ uses it: _Heaven and Earth became engaged in the Subject, by which it rises to a great Importance, and is hastened forward into the briskest Scenes of Action._ If that Author could bear the least Objection to any Thing that belongs to him, I would ask the Reader whether he does not fancy there is some Affectation in the Expression. But let that pass; if we are rightly informed, the Word _Brisk_ is in the _Teutonick Friesch_, which is in plain English _Frisk_, and then for the Gods and Demi-gods to frisk up and down the Field of Action, or the Doctor to frisk up and down his Closet is very indecorous. The Duke of _Buckingham_ in the _Rehearsal_ seems to take _Brisk_ in the latter Sense, as when Thunder and Lightning act their Parts on the Stage. The former says, I am the _bold Thunder_, the latter the _brisk Lightning I_. And not at all to derogate from the Character of Lightning, which has been so serviceable to all Sorts of Poetry and Poets, I cannot help confirming my Opinion by a very common Simile, and saying _As brisk as bottled Ale_.