Page:A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style.djvu/210

166 that the meanest Christian, however he may fail in Diction, is able to surpass the noblest Wits of Antiquity in the Truth, and Greatness of his Sentiments.

Let me only propose a Christian Orator, and compare him with the Orators of Greece and Rome, to shew Your Lordship the Advantages we are possessed of, and how greatly we may excell. If Your Lordship reads the Topics of Aristotle and Tully, and will observe how all their Arguments are formed upon the Circumstances of Things, and drawn and enforced from Virtues and Vices, the Passions and Inclinations of Mankind, Rh