D OR MANY THINGS IN FEW WORDS; ADDRESSED TO THOSE WHO THINK. HYPO- BY THE REV. C. C. COLTON, A. M. σε Φιλόσοφια εκ παραδειγμάτων.” "The noblest study of mankind is man." VOL. I. ENTERED AT STATIONERS-HALL. EIGHTEENTH EDITION. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW; AND MAY BE HAD OF ALL POOKSELLERS. 1823. Price 7s. Boards. WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. REMARKS on the TALENTS of LORD BYRON, and the TENDENCIES of DON JUAN, fourth edition. HYPOCRISY, a Satirical Poem, with Notes and Anecdotes. CONFLAGRATION of MOSCOW, a Poem. PREFACE, &c. &c. THERE are three difficulties in authorship;-to write any thing worth the publishing-to find honest men to publish it-and to get sensible men to read it. Literature has now become a game; in which the Booksellers are the Kings; the Critics, the Knaves; the Public, the Pack; and the poor Author, the mere Table, or Thing played upon. For the last thirty years, the public mind has had such interesting and rapid incidents to witness, and to reflect upon, and must now anticipate some that will be still more momentous, that any thing like dulness or prosing in authorship, will either nauseate, or be refused; the realities of life have pampered the public palate with a diet so stimulating, that vapidity has now become as insipid as water to a dram-drinker, or sober sense to a fanatic. The attempts however of dulness, are constantly repeated, and as constantly fail. For the misfortune is, that the Head of Dulness, unlike the tail of the torpedo*, loses nothing of her benumbing and lethargising influence, by reiterated discharges ; * See Humboldt's account of the Gymnotus Electricus. B |