And I may be bold to say, that _the excellent works
he published will not distinguish him from other learned men so
advantageously as this_. To publish books of great learning, to make
Greek and Latin verses exceedingly well turned, is not a common talent,
I own; neither is it extremely rare, It is incomparably more difficult
to find men who can furnish discourse about an infinite number of
things, and who can diversify them an hundred ways. How many authours
are there, who are admired for their works, on account of the vast
learning that is displayed in them, who are not able to sustain a
conversation. Those who know Menage only by his books, might think he
resembled those learned men; but if you shew the MENAGIANA, you
distinguish him from them, and make him known by a talent which is given
to very few learned men. There it appears that he was a man who spoke
off-hand a thousand good things. His memory extended to what was ancient
and modern; to the court and to the city; to the dead and to the living
languages; to things serious and things jocose; in a word, to a thousand
sorts of subjects.
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