Note 270 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS; (continued 2)

The aspersed passage in Glanvill is this: “The philosophers of elder times, though their wits were excellent, yet the way they took was not like to bring much advantage to knowledge, or any of the uses of human life, being, for the most part, that of Notion and Dispute, which still runs round in a labyrinth of talk, but advanceth nothing. These methods, in so many centuries, never brought the world so much practical beneficial knowledge as could help towards the cure of a cut finger.” Plus Ultra, p. 7.—Stubbe, with all the malice of a wit, drew his inference, and turned the point unfairly against his adversary!

I shall here observe how much some have to answer, in a literary court of conscience, when they unfairly depreciate the works of a contemporary; and how idly the literary historian performs his task, whenever he adopts the character of a writer from another who is his adversary. This may be particularly shown in the present instance.

Morhoff, in his Polyhistor Litteraria, censures the Plus Ultra of Glanvill, conceiving that he had treated with contempt all ages and nations but his own. The German bibliographer had never seen the book, but took its character from Stubbe and Meric Casaubon. The design of the Plus Ultra, however, differs little from the other works of Glanvill, which Morhoff had seen, and has highly commended.