Note 23:1 — Chapter X

In a work by Dr. John Brown, called, "An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times," 1757, there is the following passage:—"A certain historian, of our own times, bent upon popularity and gain, published a large volume, and omitted no opportunity that offered to disgrace religion. A large impression was published, and a small part sold. The author being asked why he had so larded his work with irreligion, his answer implied:—'He had done it that his book might sell.' It was whispered him, that he had totally mistaken the spirit of the times;—that no allurements could engage the fashionable infidel world to travel through a large quarto; and that, as the few readers of quartos that yet remain lie mostly among the serious part of mankind, he had offended his best customers, and ruined the sale of his book. This information had a notable effect; for a second volume, as large and instructive as the first, hath appeared; not a smack of irreligion is to be found in it; and an apology for the first concludes the whole."—P. 57.

Dr. Brown's book is said to have been very popular, and to have run to a seventh edition in a few months. It is rather singular that the edition marked as the seventh, has precisely the same matter in each page, and the same number of pages as the first.