LECTURE XXXV. COMPARATIVE MERIT OF THE ANTIENTS I WRITING. XXXV. HAVE now finished that part of the Course LECT. which respected Oratory or Public Speaking, and which, as far as the subject allowed, I have endeavoured to form into fome sort of system. It remains, that I enter on the confideration of the moft diftinguished kinds of Compofition both in Profe and Verfe, and point out the principles of Criticism relating to them. This part of the work might eafily be drawn out to a great length; but I am fenfible, that critical difcuffions, when they are pursued too far, become both trifling and tedious. I fhall ftudy, therefore, to avoid unneceffary prolixity; and hope, at the fame time, to omit nothing that is very inaterial under the feveral heads. I SHALL follow the fame method here which I have all along purfued, and without which thefe Lectures VOL. III. B XXXV. LE C T. Lectures could not be entitled to any attention; that is, I fhall freely deliver my own opinion on every subject; regarding authority no farther, than as it appears to me founded on good sense and reason. In former Lectures, as I have often quoted feveral of the antient Claffics for their beauties, fo I have alfo, fometimes, pointed out their defects. Hereafter, I fhall have occafion to do the fame, when treating of their writings under more general heads. It may be fit, therefore, that, before I proceed farther, I make fome obfervations on the comparative merit of the Antients and the Moderns; in order that we may be able to ascertain rationally, upon what foundation that deference refts, which has fo generally been paid to the Antients. Thefe obfervations are the more neceffary, as this fubject has given rife to no fmall controverfy in the Republic of Letters; and they may, with propriety, be made now, as they will ferve to throw light on fome things I have afterwards to deliver, concerning different kinds of Compofition. It is a remarkable phænomenon, and one which has often employed the speculations of curious men, that Writers and Artifts, moft diftinguifhed for their parts and genius, have generally appeared in confiderable numbers at a time. Some ages have been remarkably barren in them; while, at other periods, Nature feems to have exerted herself with a more than ordinary effort, and to have poured them them forth with a profufe fertility. fons have been affigned for this. Various rea- I. ECT. Some of the moral causes lie obvious; fuch as favourable circumftances of government and of manners; encouragement from great men; emulation excited among the men of genius. But as thefe have been thought inadequate to the whole effect, phyfical causes have been alfo affigned; and the Abbé du Bos, in his Reflections on Poetry and Painting, has collected a great many obfervations on the influence which the air, the climate, and other fuch natural caufes, may be fuppofed to have upon genius. But whatever the caufes be, the fact is certain, that there have been certain periods or ages of the world much more distinguished than others, for the extraordinary productions of genius. LEARNED men have marked out four of these happy ages. The first is the Grecian Age, which commenced near the time of the Peloponnefian war, and extended till the time of Alexander the Great; within which period, we have Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Socrates, Plato, Ariftotle, Demofthenes, Efchines, Lyfias, Ifocrates, Pindar, fchylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Ariftophanes, Menander, Anacreon, Theocritus, Lyfippus, Apelles, Phidias, Praxiteles. The fecond is the Roman Age, included nearly within the days of Julius Cæfar and Auguftus; affording us Catullus, Lucretius, Terence, Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, B 2 XXXV. XXXV. LECT bullus, Propertius, Ovid, Phædrus, Cæfar, Cicero, Livy, Salluft, Varro, and Vitruvius. The third Age is, that of the restoration of Learning, under the Popes Julius II. and Leo X.; when flourished Ariofto, Taffo, Sannazarius, Vida, Machiavel, Guicciardini, Davila, Erafmus, Paul Jovius, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian. The fourth, comprehends the Age of Louis XIV. and Queen Anne; when flourished in France, Corneille, Racine, De Retz, Moliere, Boileau, Fontaine, Baptifte, Rouffeau, Boffuet, Fenelon, Bourdaloue, Pafcall, Malebranche, Maffilon, Bruyere, Bayle, Fontenelle, Vertot; and in England, Dryden, Pope, Addifon, Prior, Swift, Parnell, Arbuthnot, Congreve, Otway, Young, Rowe, Atterbury, Shaftefbury, Bolingbroke, Tillitfon, Temple, Boyle, Locke, Newton, Clarke. WHEN we speak comparatively of the Antients and the Moderns, we generally mean by the Antients, fuch as lived in the two first of these periods, including alfo one or two who lived more early, as Homer in particular; and by the moderns, those who flourished in the two laft of these agès, including also the eminent Writers down to our own times. Any comparifon between these two claffes of Writers must neceffarily be vague and loose, as they comprehend fo many, and of fuch different kinds and degrees of genius. But the comparison is generally made to turn, by those who are fond of making it, upon two or three of the most diftinguished |