6 C Prefat.

Definitions difficult To give exact definitions of crimes & other objects

of Law is much more difficult than to lay down

any of those rules which suppose the boundaries [nature]

& description of each object to be already ascertained

& known. Instance Common False.

No test for merit Standard of merit much less fixed in this sort

of work than in any other. In a Poem

or other work the end of which is to please if

the end be attained it is attained at once — It's

being attained is manifest beyond dispute — to

a History in as far as it pleases & with respect to accuracy

the original materials are manifest &

standing tests. In a Book of Natural Philosophy

the merit of it is triable by immediate

experiment

But in this there are no principles so fixed

as to ensure it approbation. After all that can be done

by reason a great deal must be left to sentiment and caprice

Longitude encouraged, why All the Sovereigns of Europe ought to make

it their business, as they have done the Longitude.

The Longitude belongs to another time. It is not

within the competency of Statesmen. Chesterfield: contempt

of Astronomers.

I have never let a general proposition pass without

examining the propriety of it with respect to every particular

contained under it. Thus &c.

Short Sentences Crit. Review for Aug. 1778. p.160. In so work I have met with a passage on this subject which recurs to be full judgement & good sense.

"In books of this kind" [for children]" the second article [shortness

of the sentences] is a circumstance of great importance.

Children should be taught to pronounce their sentences with smartness and spirit.

And this is practicable in sentences of 3 or 4 words, or

at most 5 or 6. A long sentence, extending through several lines,

is not to be composed by their feeble organs: for instead of supporting

their voice with smartness and energy, they are perplexed

by a multitude of words, & naturally sink into a whining

drawling monotony.

C 13 Prefat

They gave £...30,000 for this work why? because

it was the sort of work none of them liked themselves. No

man apprehended that anyone by executing such a

work will ever so much merit & success would be called

above himself.

The Emperor Claudius conferred on a man

[his freedman Pallas] the Praetorian dignity contres

quinquagies sesterlium for the invention of a single Law.

Tac. Num. XII, 53 & Plur. Nat. Hist. XXXV less penult

& Plur. VIII, 5 in , Antig. Vol. I. p.213

Lit Tut. 16 // 8.

The reward in the present case liberal & simple

for a private man to give. As a reward it never could

have served to engage any one in the design who

could be at all qualified to execute it. The case that it

is of is the ensuring him the attention of a certain set

of intelligent readers judges; & the celebrity of it may require if

recommended by their suffrage.

Prizes have not produced good poems: but a good poem is not the work of study alone. The King gives plates for the surefast Horse:

and by this means the kingdom is stocked with an excellent

breed of horses. No King has ever thought of

giving a Plate to be started for by Lawmakers.

Yet neither is the composition of a good code a work

of much less importance nor of less difficulty than this

trading of a good horse, nor are jurists & political speculators men of letters and education

less sensible to rewards & honours distinctions than horse jockies & -breeders.

When one thinks of an institution a manor that may be done with a word one imagines at the same time would be useful, one is apt to presume that the Empress of Rape a maid have embraced it. - & where upon enquiry in hand, that the law not embraced, one begins to doubt whether it could have been useful / I except these that could require more I

Wonder - that the Congress of Austria whose wisdom prudence

& activity extend to every thing whose Administration is

one scene of well-empoy'd munificence, should

not yet have embraced this measure. Long ago however He has taken a

step towards it: a step much beyond any that has ever

been taken by any other sovereign: a step that in some

countries might of itself have been sufficient to [ a produce

the effect desired] effective to the purpose.