"8. I, and perhaps I alone, have acquired what I know entirely by the rules you have laid down, of studying without a master. I am still but a learner; and you must pardon me if I am not yet become learned. If knowledge is to be acquired by your mode, the hope of it, at least, still serves to illuminate my path. "9. I doubt, indeed, whether you, or any other lecturer, can enter into controversy with propriety. Professors and teachers should, above all things, acquire the confidence and respect of their hearers. If they appear in the light of students, how much of human imperfection must appear, and what a depreciation of their dignity! What man was ever so learned and wise, who, in correcting others, did not now and then show he wanted correction himself? Something always sticks to him. We have lately seen an instance of this in a most distinguished professor, the ornament of his university, who, having long indulged himself in attacks upon schoolmasters, has at last got so severe a castigation from one of this tribe, that it is doubtful whether he can ever recover his ground at all, and certain that he cannot recover it entirely. A very wise physician has declared, that he would rather give up physic, and the practice of it altogether, than enter into public controversy. "10. Look over the whole body of controversial writers, and point out one of them who has received any thanks for what he has done in this way. Matthiolus would have been the greatest man of his day if he had not meddled with such matters. Who is gratified by 'the mad Cornarus,' or 'the flayed fox,' (titles bestowed on each other by Fuchsius and Cornarus)? What good have Ray and Rivinus done with their quarrels? Dillenius still laments that he took up arms against Rivinus; nor has the victory he gained added any thing to his fame. Did not Threlkeld give him much more just cause of offence? But he was now grown wiser, and would not take up the gauntlet. Vaillant, at one time a most excellent observer, attempted to cut his way with authority through the armies of Tournefort; has he not met with his deserts? and would he not have risen much higher had he left him unmolested?