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Favours You have been pleafed to confer upon me, I did not hesitate one Moment whether I should lay hold of it or not; for how averse soever You may be to have Your Generous and Difinterested Actions thus made known to the World, yet, as for my felf, I could not be intirely filent without a just Imputation of Ingratitude.

Nor fhould I, on fo fair an Occafion, refift the violent Inclination I have of

faying fomething in praise of Your fuperior Abilities, however unequal I am to the Task, was not Your Character so well known, and

so firmly established in the World. Befides as the ardu

ous Station You are in is derived from the repeated Approbation of a BRITISH SENATE, founded upon a long Experience of Your Extenfive Capacity and Extraordinary Merit, fuch an Attempt must be as vain as it is un

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neceffary: For what higher

Reputation can You poffibly enjoy, than that which arises from the Poffeffion of Talents by which You shine fo confpicuously in that August and Venerable Assembly? But, not to say any thing of Your Humanity, Affability, Generosity, and other Qualities, which render You belov'd as well as admir'd, there is nothing contributes to compleat Your Character more than Your Proficiency in all

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useful Learning, and Your Regard for Men of Letters; for which Reason I imagin❜d the Description of a Nation fo ftudious as that of the CHINESE, might prove no unacceptable Present. Perhaps they are the only People in the World among whom Men of the loweft, as well as the highest Birth, are advanc'd to Offices in the State in Proportion to their Progress in Literature, it being their fettled Maxim, That the most effential Diffe

rence

rence between Man and Man lies in the Endowments of the Mind. But then it has

this very remarkable Effect, that Arts and Sciences are almost as much neglected, as that Branch of Learning is cultivated by which they hope to make a Figure in the World: For tho' they neither want Genius nor Application, they cannot perfuade themselves to a very anxious Purfuit after Attainments, the principal Reward of which is

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