XXVIII. We have not as yet, said any thing of authors or writers; but
this semblance of learning, is the easiest to put on of all others.
There is no more difficulty in writing ill, than there is in talking ill;
and provided a man writes in the _bon ton_, and can flourish with the
king’s licence in the front of his work, the book will go off, and the
author will pass with the ideots of the world, for a learned, and an able
man.
XXIX. But a person may make sure of gaining applause as an author with
the generality of mankind, and this may be done in two ways, either by
filling his writing with common-place observations, and just taking care
to diversify and scatter them about; or else by stealing from other
authors; and where there are great numbers of books to have recourse to,
the danger of being detected in the plagiary is not very considerable;
for there are very few who read many books, and nobody can read all
that are published; so that all the hazard a person runs of being found
out, is, that here and there one out of many thousands of readers, may
discover from whence he made the theft; and among all the rest, he would
pass for an original author, and they would acknowledge and respect him
as such.
XXX. The writing from alphabetical compilations is also extremely easy.
There is the Theatre of human life, the Polyantheas, and many other
books, where erudition is arranged under the initial letters of the
several branches of learning, and these books, by having copious indexes
annexed to them, become a kind of public fountains, where all the
animals of the world may drink, both men and beasts. Whatever subject
a man undertakes to write upon, be it politics, morality, humanity,
or history, he has only to turn to the index, which will point out to
him, where he may be furnished with a copious assortment of texts, and
citations, that are amassed together in these books for the use of all
the world, and where he may collect whatever he has occasion for. By this
management, the new author may gain himself the reputation of a man of
great erudition and reading; for there are very few who can distinguish
by the connection and regular series of a writing, that kind of copious
erudition, which is well arranged and properly separated in the brain,
and which flows opportunely from thence to the pen; from that, which a
man when he is hard put to it, is obliged to collect from indexes and
common-place books, with which he swells his work, and with which he
heaps up in it, gross and bulky trifles, that consist of straw and chaff,
collected from common-place Latin citations and numbers.