no doubt, an admirable Instrument in the Hands of wise Men; when they were only employ'd to describe Goodness, Honesty, Obedience, in larger, fairer, and more moving Images, to represent Truth cloath'd with Bodies, and to bring Knowledge back again to our very Senses, from whence it was at first deriv'd to our Understandings. But now they are generally chang'd to worst Uses; they make the Fancy disgust the best Things, if they come sound and unadorn'd; they are in open Defiance against Reason; professing not to hold much Correspondence with that; but with its Slaves, the Passions; they give the Mind a Motion too changeable and bewitching, to consist with right Practice. Who can behold, without Indignation, how many Mists and Uncertainties, these specious Tropes and Figures have brought on our Knowledge? How many Rewards, which are due to more profitable and difficult Arts, have been still snatch'd away by the easy Vanity of fine Speaking! For now I am warm'd with this just Anger, I cannot with-hold my self, from betraying the Shallowness of all these seeming Mysteries; upon which, we Writers, and Speakers, look so big. And in few Words, I dare say, that of all the Studies of Men, nothing may be sooner obtain'd, than this vicious Abundance of Phrase, this Trick of Metaphors, this Volubility of Tongue, which makes so great a Noise in the World. But I spend Words in Vain; for the Evil is now so inveterate, that it is hard to know whom to blame, or where to begin to reform. We all value one another so much, upon this beautiful Deceit; and labour so long after it, in the Years of our Education; that we cannot but ever after think kinder of it, than it deserves. And indeed, in most other Parts of Learning, I look on it to be a Thing al-
