the root, nor the extent, nor the proper remedy, of the disorders they wished to cure, their best sentiments, however specious in theory, made little more impression upon the hearts of their admirers, or even upon their own, than the falling snow makes upon a rock. If the ancient sages could do but little, the modern philosophers, as they choose to be called, have done, if possible, still less. What a poet observed of the former is, at least, equally applicable to the latter, Virtus laudatur et alget.