Note 5 — DISSERTATION I.
Reading edition
Dr. Witherspoon is an exception. His stile is easy, simple and elegant. I consider Dr. Franklin and Dr. Witherspoon as the two best writers in America. The words they use, and their arrangement, appear to flow spontaneously from their manner of thinking. The vast superiority of their stiles over those of Gibbon and Gillies, is owing to this circumstance, that the two American writers have bestowed their labor upon ideas, and the English historians upon words.