"To us invifible, or dimly feen "In these thy loweit works. Yet thefe declare * Him first, him lait, him midit, and without end,” &c. How would these thoughts (hine in Homer's Greek! How would Longinus have celebrated fuch a paffage in a venerable ancient! How would our Daciers and our Popes have celebrated it! Let us not therefore be impofed on by found; but while we pay due praise to antiquity, let us not refufe it to fuch of the moderns as ave deferved it even in thofe arts, in which the ancients have exhibited their utmoft abilities. But though it should be confeffed, that the ancient poets, orators, and sculptors have in some respects outdone the moderns; when this is faid, all is faid, that can with truth be affirmed of their fuperiority to us. For in most parts of folid fcience, they were mere children: Their phyfiology is egregious trifling, and groundless hypothefis, drawn not fo much from nature, as from fancy. Their theology or mythology is a mixture of fenfe, mystery, fable, and impurity. Their ethics are well enough for what they have delivered. But it is a ftructure without connection, and without foundation. Whoever has ftudied Woollafton's Religion of Nature delineated, will hardly think Aristotle's Ethics, or Tully's Offices, worth reading, for the fake of improvement in real and scientific knowledge of the foundation and obligations of morality. He who has digefted Dr. Clark's noble work, will hardly have recourfe to Cicero, Of the Nature of the Gods, for juft ideas of the Supreme Being, and a rational fcheme of religion. Who would name fuch philfophers as Pliny, or Elian, with Mr. Boyle, or Mr. Ray? Who would think of comparing Ariftotle's Logic with Mr. Locke's, or Ptolemy's Aftronomy with Sir Ifaac Newton's? There are many whole fciences known in our times, of which the ancients had not the leaft fufpicion, and arts which they have had no conception. All the discoveries made by thofe noble inftruments, the telescope, the microfcope, and the air-pump; the phænomena of electricity; the circulation of the blood, and various other difcoveries in anatomy; the whole theory of light and colours; almost all that is known of the laws by which the machine of the world is governed; the methods of algebra and fluxions; printing, clocks, the compafs, gunpowder, and I know not how many more, are the productions of the induftry and fagacity of the moderns. It is therefore very unaccountable, that many ftudious men fhould exprefs, on all occafions, fuch an unbounded and unreafonable admiration of the ancients, merely for the elegances and fublimities, which appear in their works of fancy, which are likewife dif graced in many places by a trifling and childish extravagance, running often fo far into the marvellous, as quite to lofe fight of the probable. Witnefs Virgil's prophetical harpies, bleeding twigs, and one-eyed Brobdignagians; Homer's speaking horfes, fcolding goddeffes, and Jupiter enchanted with Venus's girdle; and Ovid's firing of unnatural and monftrous fictions from the beginning to the end of his book! Whoever may be difpofed to queftion what is here faid as a peculiar or new notion, may read Mr. Locke on the Conduct of the Understanding, and Wotton's and Baker's Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning; there he will find the subject difcuffed in a more copious manner, than the bounds of this treatise would allow. It is therefore very neceffary, that in cultivating a taste, people take care to value the ancients only for what is truly valuable in them, and not to prefer them, univerfally and in the grofs, to the moderns, who, by the advantage of fucceeding to the labours of their anceftors, have acquired incomparably the fuperiority over them in almost all parts of real knowledge drawn from actual obfervation; in method and clofenefs of reafoning; in depth of inquiry; in more various ways, as well as more compendious methods of coming at truth; and, in general, in whatever is ufeful for improving the under understanding; advantages as much fuperior to what ferves only to refine the imagination, and work upon the paffions, as it is of more confequence that a man receive improvement in true knowledge, than that he pass his life in a pleating dream. Befides the ancient hiftorians mentioned under the article of hiftory, whoever would form his tafte upon the best models, must be in fome measure acquainted with the Greek poets, as Homer, Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides, Callimachus, Theocritus, Aristophanes, Anacreon. Their orators, as Demofthenes, Ifocrates, and Efchines, The philofophers, whofe works in that language are come down to us, are to be looked into, not fo much on account of their fentiments, of which above, as their ftyle and manner. The chief of them are, Plate, who also gives an account of the philofophy of Socrates, AriJotle, Xenophon, Plutarch, Epictetus, Longinus, Jamblicbus, who gives an account of Pythagoras, Theophraftus, Hierocles, Elian. To thefe may be added Philo Judæus, Diogenes Laertius, and Max. Tyrius. The greatest ancient philofophers, who writ in Latin, are Cicero, Pliny, Seneca, Lucretius, Quintilian, Lucius Apuleius, and Boethius. The best Latin poets are Virgil, Horace, Terence, Juvenal, Perfius, Plautus, Lucretius, Seneca the tragic poet, Martial, Lucan, Statius, Aufonius, and Claudian. Whoever has a mind to look into the Fathers, after having got a little acquaintance with what is afcribed to Barnabas, Clement, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, and with the remains of Clemens Alexandrinus, Iræneus, Cyprian, Tertullian, Juftin martyr, Origen, Jerome, Auguftin, Eufebius, and Lactantius, or as many of them as he can conveniently look into, may reft contented with what he will have gained by that study. There may be a few other ancient authors, Greek and Latin, which a gentleman may find his advantage in looking into. And there are great parts of moft of those here mentioned, which it were better to pass over. There are, almoft in all the ancient uninfpired writers, numberless exceptionable and wrong-turned fentiments, of of which the judicious reader's difcernment will obviate the bad effects. Ufeful books in criticism are, Hefychius, Suidas, Hedericus's Lexicon, Scupula, and Conftantine's Lexicon; Stephens's Thefaurus; Ainsworth's Dictionary; Potter's Greek, and Kennet's Roman Antiquities; Montfaucon's Paleographia Græca, and Antiquité Expliquée; the various authors collected in Gravis's and Gronoviuss Thefaurus; in Sallengre's Novus Thefaurus; in Gruter's Fax Artium; and a multitude of others enumerated by Waffe in his Memorial concerning the Defiderata in Learning, printed in Bibliotheca Literaria, Lond. 1722. No. iii. Among the ancients, Ariftotle, Longinus, and Quintilian. Among the French, Dacier and Bofft. And among the English, Addison and Pope are good critics. I cannot here help making a remark upon the manner of moft of thofe profeffed critics, who undertake to tranflate, comment, anfwer, or write remarks upon authors. These gentlemen feem generally to run greatly into extremes either in praifing or blaming. I own I cannot perfuade myself that Homer, for example, underflood the anatomy of the human body as perfectly as Boerhaave, merely from the circumftance of his wounding his heroes in fo many different parts. Nor can I think that Mr. Chambers could have extracted his circle of the arts and fciences out of the Iliad and Odyssey, even with the help of Pope's and Dacier's notes into the bargain. On the other. hand, I cannot help thinking that there is fome of the genuine spirit of poetry in Sir Richard Blackmore's works, notwithstanding what the fatirical Dean Swift has, in the bitterness of his wit, faid against him. Nor does it clearly appear to me that all the heroes in the Dunciad deserve a place in the lift of votaries of the goddefs of Dullness. I have made this remark for the fake of taking occafion to caution readers not to let themselves be mifled by critics or commentators; but, after endeavouring to fix a fet of rational, clear, and indifputable marks, whereby to judge of the real excellences or blemishes of of the works they read, whether ancient or modern, to read the critics, but to ufe their own judgment, The best English poets are Spencer, Milton, Shakespear, Waller, Rowe, Addison, Pope. I mention only thofe whofe writings are generally innocent. Wit or genius, when applied to the corrupting or debauching the mind or manners of the reader, ought to be doomed to infamy and oblivion. And it is the difgrace of our country and religion, that such stuff as the greatest parts of the works of a Dryden, or a Congreve, and fuch like, fhould be in print. Among the French there are feveral good writers in the Belles Lettres, as Corneille and Racine, Rollin, Dacier, Fenelon, Boileau, and Moliere, the best writer of comedy who has flourished fince Terence; his characters being all well drawn, his moral always good, and his language chafte and decent. To acquire a tafte in painting, fculpture, and architecture, travel is the most effectual means. But fuch, whofe convenience it does not fuit to go abroad, may fee fome finall collections of valuable paintings and statues in our own country, and may with advantage read on painting and defign, Harris, Du Bos, Richardson, Frefnoy, Laireffe, the Jefuit's Art of Perfpective, Des Piles, Roma Illuftrata, Da Vinci, Gravefande, and Ditton on Perspective. On architecture, Palladio, De Chambray, Felibien, Sebaftian, Le Clerc, Perrault, Freart, and Evelyn. And on ftatuary, Alberti and Richardfon. THE SECT. VI. Of Travel. 'HERE are three countries, of which it may be an advantage to a gentleman of fortune to fee a little; I mean Holland, France, and Italy. The first, with a view to commerce and police; the fecond to the elegance of life; and the laft to curiofities in art, ancient and modern. There is a pedantry in travel, as well as other accomplishments. And where there is not a direct view to real |