Note 141 — Chapter II · CRITICAL REMARKS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

We perceive intuitively the error of Milton, when he calls Adam “the comeliest of men since born,” Eve also “the fairest of her daughters,” and we laugh, perhaps, when the Cork almanack-maker gravely tells us, “that the principal republics in Europe, are Venice, Holland, and America;” yet the error here reprehended is precisely of the same species, though it passes frequently unnoticed. See p. 74.