The singular contradiction, for instance, between most of the conclusions our author draws from the facts he relates, and the facts themselves, is, (when it is possible to ascertain the meaning of such conclusions) really matter of surprise. The critics of our author, who were sensible of this inconsistency, had derived comfort from it, and hoped that the book would propagate but little heresy, since hardly any body could understand it. However, this very manner in which our author has composed his work, wherein he contradicts not only the facts he relates, but even his own assertions, sometimes two or three times in the same page, leads us to the discovery of his real design in writing it, and clears him from having entertained any views of an heretical or dangerous nature. He only proposed, it appears, to compile together facts and quotations which amused him, and which he thought would also amuse the public; and he terminated them (or sometimes whole strings of them) with seeming conclusions and random assertions, in order to make the reader judge that he had a serious and even theological design, in making his compilation. Another cause of surprise in our Author’s book, is, the prodigious incoherency of the facts themselves he has linked together. But in this respect, likewise, we discover, after a little examination, that his views were of a perfectly harmless kind, and that this singularity was not owing to any design of his own, as might at first sight be imagined, but only to the manner in which he proceeded in his work. His practice was, it appears, to lay down, at the same time, upon the paper, all the facts to his liking he found related in the productions of the same author; and at other times also, he introduced together, we may suppose, all the stories and quotations the discovery of which he had made in the course of the same morning[3]. A translation of a book thus made, was therefore, as hath been above said, impracticable. And as a number of the facts and quotations it contains are curious, either in themselves, or on account of the authors from whom they are extracted, I have at once enlarged my first plan, and thought of writing another book with the materials contained in that of the Abbé Boileau.