An account of Mr. Ferguson, his common-place-book in two letters.

SIR,

I Have received your Letter, and thank you very heartily for it. I was much puzzled before to give an account of the inequality of M. Ferguson's Style and Reasoning: for his Words are sometimes proper and ele∣gant, his Arguments strong and weighty, at other times his Phrase is barbarous and pedantick, and his Reasonings childish: and I always observed that he writ best upon some trite and beaten Argument, where he had no Adversary; but take him out of the road of Common Places and Phrase-Books, and he could neither write consistently with himself, nor any thing to the purpose. This gave me a great suspicion of the man, that he was a mere Collector, and that his Book was made just as the

Epicuraeans fansie the World was, by the accidental Concourse of Atoms, and may serve for a Confutation of that wild Hypothesis; it being a plain Demonstration, how impossible it is to make a good Book out of the best Common-Places and Collections, unless a wise man have the composing of it.

Upon the receipt of your Letter, which made so pleasant a discovery of the man, I had the Curiosity to enquire a little fur∣ther, and in requital of your kindness, I have here sent you some of his gleanings from other Authors, though so changed and transformed, and found in such ill Company, that I fear those worthy persons will be ashamed to own them.

And because M. Ferg. with the usual confidence of a bold Scot, pretends a very particular Friendship with that excellent Person, Sir Charles Wolseley, I shall first take notice how bold he has made with him; which I suppose he did upon the Authority of that old Saying, All things are common among Friends; and therefore he might challenge as good a right to Sir Charles his Writings, as himself.

M. Ferg. among other things shews the Use and Serviceableness of Reason in proving the Divinity of the Scripture, p. 56, &c. Sir Charles had done this before him, and had managed that Argument like a Scholar and a Gentleman, in his Book entituled, The Reasonableness of Scripture-Belief; from whence our Author has borrowed most of his best Arguments, and many times his Words and Phrases.