Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Further reading
- Note on the text
- Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times
- Preface
- A letter concerning enthusiasm to my Lord *****
- Sensus communis, an essay on the freedom of wit and humour in a letter to a friend
- Soliloquy, or advice to an author
- An inquiry concerning virtue or merit
- The moralists, a philosophical rhapsody, being a recital of certain conversations on natural and moral subjects
- Miscellaneous reflections on the preceding treatises and other critical subjects
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy
A letter concerning enthusiasm to my Lord *****
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Further reading
- Note on the text
- Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times
- Preface
- A letter concerning enthusiasm to my Lord *****
- Sensus communis, an essay on the freedom of wit and humour in a letter to a friend
- Soliloquy, or advice to an author
- An inquiry concerning virtue or merit
- The moralists, a philosophical rhapsody, being a recital of certain conversations on natural and moral subjects
- Miscellaneous reflections on the preceding treatises and other critical subjects
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy
Summary
What prevents the man of mirth from telling the truth?
September 1707
My Lord,
Now you are returned to …, and, before the season comes which must engage you in the weightier matters of state, if you care to be entertained a while with a sort of idle thoughts, such as pretend only to amusement and have no relation to business or affairs, you may cast your eye slightly on what you have before you. And if there be anything inviting, you may read it over at your leisure.
It has been an established custom for poets, at the entrance of their work, to address themselves to some Muse, and this practice of the ancients has gained so much repute that even in our days we find it almost constantly imitated. I cannot but fancy, however, that this imitation, which passes so currently with other judgments, must at some time or other have stuck a little with your Lordship, who is used to examine things by a better standard than that of fashion or the common taste. You must certainly have observed our poets under a remarkable constraint, when obliged to assume this character, and you have wondered perhaps why that air of enthusiasm, which sits so gracefully with an ancient, should be so spiritless and awkward in a modern.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000
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