Authors, you know of greatest fame, Thro' modesty suppress their name; And would you wish me to reveal What these superior wits conceal? Forego the search, my curious friend, And husband time to better end. All my ambition is, I own, To profit and to please unknown, Like streams supplied from springs below Which scatter blessings as they flow. DR. COTTON. Thus have I, as well as I could, gathered a posey of observations as they grew,—and if some rue and wormwood be found amongst the sweeter herbs, their wholesomeness will make amends for their bitterness. ADAM LITTLETON. This worthy work in which of good examples are so many, This orchard of Alcinous, in which there wants not any Herb, tree, or fruit that may mans use for health or pleasure serve; This plenteous horn of Acheloy, which justly doth deserve To bear the name of Treasury of Knowledge, I present To your good worships once again,—desiring you therefore To let your noble courtesy and favour countervail My faults, where art or eloquence on my behalf doth fail, For sure the mark whereat I shoot is neither wreaths of bay, Nor name of author, no, nor meed; but chiefly that it may Be liked well of you and all the wise and learned sort; And next, that every wight that shall have pleasure for to sport Him in this garden, may as well bear wholesome fruit away As only on the pleasant flowers his retchless senses stay. GOLDING. Doubtless many thoughts have presented, and are still presenting themselves to my mind, which once I had no idea of. But these, in I believe every instance, are as much the growth of former rooted principles, as multiplied branches grow from one and the same main stem. Of such an inward vegetation I am always conscious; and I equally seem to myself to perceive the novelty of the fresh shoot, and its connexion with what had been produced before. ALEXANDER KNOX. The extensive argument and miscellaneous nature of the work led him to declare his sentiments on a multitude of questions, on which he thought differently from other writers, and of course, to censure or confute their opinions. Whole bodies of men, as well as individuals of the highest reputation, were attacked by him, and his manner was to speak his sense of all with freedom and force. So that most writers, and even readers, had some ground of complaint against him. Not only the free-thinkers and unbelievers, against whom the tenour of his book was directed, but the heterodox of every denomination were treated without much ceremony, and of the orthodox themselves, some tenet or other, which till then they had held sacred, was discussed and reprobated by him. Straggling heresies, or embodied systems, made no difference with him; as they came in his way, no quarter was given to either, “his end and manner of writing,” as Dr. Middleton truly observed, “being to pursue truth wherever he found it.” HURD'S LIFE OF WARBURTON.