Page:A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style.djvu/266

222 Suckling, and other Bards celebrated in their Time, I forbear; and Ben Johnson I dare not meddle with, lest he, or some body surly as himself, should rise, and rebuke me for not writing of him with that Labour and Exactness he always wrote with.

My Lord, I have given You a List of Poets almost equal to the Ancients, and this is the greatest Character that can be given of Modern Works. For though I think Spencer and Shakespear as great Genius's as ever were produced in Rome or Athens, they will not bear a strict Comparison upon all the Beauties of Writing. Milton, alone, in Epic Writing hath transcended the Greek and the Latin Poet. He hath Rh