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.The extreme sensibility ofVoltaire to the slightest censure of the same kind is well known to every body.TheDunciad of Mr.Pope is an everlasting monument of how much the most correct,as well as the most elegant and harmonious of all the English poets, had been hurtby the criticisms of the lowest and most contemptible authors.Gray (who joins tothe sublimity of Milton the elegance and harmony of Pope, and to whom nothingis wanting to render him, perhaps, the first poet in the English language, but tohave written a little more) is said to have been so much hurt, by a foolish andimpertinent parody of two of his finest odes, that he never afterwards attemptedany considerable work.Those men of letters who value themselves upon what iscalled fine writing in prose, approach somewhat to the sensibility of poets.III.2 111The Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam SmithMathematicians, on the contrary, who may have the most perfect assurance,20both of the truth and of the importance of their discoveries, are frequently very in-different about the reception which they may meet with from the public.The twogreatest mathematicians that I ever have had the honour to be known to, and, I be-lieve, the two greatest that have lived in my time, Dr.Robert Simpson of Glasgow,and Dr.Matthew Stewart of Edinburgh, never seemed to feel even the slightestuneasiness from the neglect with which the ignorance of the public received someof their most valuable works.The great work of Sir Isaac Newton, his Mathe-matical Principles of Natural Philosophy, I have been told, was for several yearsneglected by the public.The tranquillity of that great man, it is probable, neversuffered, upon that account, the interruption of a single quarter of an hour.Naturalphilosophers, in their independency upon the public opinion, approach nearly tomathematicians, and, in their judgments concerning the merit of their own discov-eries and observations, enjoy some degree of the same security and tranquillity.The morals of those different classes of men of letters are, perhaps, sometimes21somewhat affected by this very great difference in their situation with regard tothe public.Mathematicians and natural philosophers, from their independency upon the22public opinion, have little temptation to form themselves into factions and cabals,either for the support of their own reputation, or for the depression of that of theirrivals.They are almost always men of the most amiable simplicity of manners,who live in good harmony with one another, are the friends of one another s repu-tation, enter into no intrigue in order to secure the public applause, but are pleasedwhen their works are approved of, without being either much vexed or very angrywhen they are neglected.It is not always the same case with poets, or with those who value themselves23upon what is called fine writing.They are very apt to divide themselves intoa sort of literary factions; each cabal being often avowedly, and almost alwayssecretly, the mortal enemy of the reputation of every other, and employing all themean arts of intrigue and solicitation to preoccupy the public opinion in favourof the works of its own members, and against those of its enemies and rivals.InFrance, Despreaux and Racine did not think it below them to set themselves at thehead of a literary cabal, in order to depress the reputation, first of Quinault andPerreault, and afterwards of Fontenelle and La Motte, and even to treat the goodLa Fontaine with a species of most disrespectful kindness.In England, the amiableMr.Addison did not think it unworthy of his gentle and modest character to sethimself at the head of a little cabal of the same kind, in order to keep down therising reputation of Mr.Pope.Mr.Fontenelle, in writing the lives and characters ofIII.2 112The Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam Smiththe members of the academy of sciences, a society of mathematicians and naturalphilosophers, has frequent opportunities of celebrating the amiable simplicity oftheir manners; a quality which, he observes, was so universal among them asto be characteristical, rather of that whole class of men of letters, than of anyindividual Mr
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