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ARGUMENT.
Books afford Consolation to the troubled Mind, by substituting a lighter kind of Distress for its own.—They are productive of other Advantages:—An Author's hope of being known in distant Times.Arrangement of the Library.—Size and Form of the Volumes.—The antient Folio, clasped and chained.—Fashion prevalent even in this Place.—The Mode of publishing in Numbers, Pamphlets, &c.—Subjects of the different Classes.Divinity.—Controversy.—The Friends of Religion often more dangerous than her Foes.—Sceptical Authors.—Reason too much rejected by the former Converts; exclusively relied upon by the latter.Philosophy ascending through the Scale of Being to Moral Subjects.Books of Medicine: Their Variety, Variance, and proneness to System: The Evil of this, and the Difficulty it causes:—Farewell to this Study.Law;—The increasing Number of its Volumes.—Supposed happy State of Man without Laws.—Progress of Society.Historians; their Subjects.Dramatic Authors, Tragic and Comic.Ancient Romances.—The Captive Heroine.—Happiness in the perusal of such Books: why.Criticism.—Apprehensions of the Author: Removed by the appearance of the Genius of the Place; whose Reasoning and Admonition conclude the Subject.
