An Account of Books published in 1758.
An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times, by the Author of Essays on the Characteristics. Davis and Reymers.
FEW books have met with a warmer reception or severer censure than the work before us. Its great success arose partly from the circumstances of the time when it appeared, partly from its own merit. It appeared at a time when our ill success in the war had infused so general a discontent into the minds of all people, that even a severe national satire was not then disagreeable to the public disposition. And as to the work itself, though the observations it contains were many of them not absolutely new; yet they were so methodized, the connection and relation of the several reigning vices and follies were so well marked, and their necessary influence on the prosperity of the state were so well displayed, that it had an appearance of being both new and useful.
The disadvantageous picture given of modern times in this work, revived a topic which has often been discuffed with far more zeal and curiosity than real advantage; the dispute concerning the preference of ancient and modern times. Vetera admirari, præfentia sequi, has ever been the disposition of mankind. Always discontented with the present state of things, to which however we always conform ourselves, we naturally lament those periods of our lives which we have passed, and the ages that have passed before us. We are apt to take our examples of what we ought to shun from present, and therefore more odious vice; and our examples of what we ought to follow from departed, and therefore less envied and more venerable virtue. These dispositions have led several to throw virtue as far backward as possible, and very extravagantly to maintain that the world is continually degenerating.
Another sort of philosophers have however lately appeared, who take a very different course; they assert that they can discover no superiorities that any former age has over the prefent. That the degeneracy of the times has been the complaint even of the times which we admire. Ætas parentium pejor avis tulit, &c. is one of the oldest complaints in the world. That if we were to suppose mankind proceeded in an uniform progress in degeneracy and corruption, it is inconceivable how human society could have subsisted to this time. On the whole, they conclude that the race of men has been much the same in all ages.
This opinion, full as extravagant as the former, is much more pernicious; it has been found one of the most useful topics for spreading vice and corruption, and in its best consequence can only induce a dull acquiescence in our present condition. An uniform progression in vice is an opinion supported by no reason: and can only be considered as a poetical exaggeration: but, on the other hand, a man must fhut his eyes in good earnest, not to perceive that nationsat
