Page:A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style.djvu/268

224 pronounce so, upon the Whole, upon their Writers and ours. I must beg Pardon therefore, if I fall into Sir William Temple's Party in this Article of Ancient and Modern Learning, and give the Preference to the great Originals of Greece and Rome; I am the more conﬁrmed in this Judgment, by observing that our greatest Masters in Composition have been always of the same Opinion; and it would be hard for the Patrons of Modern Learning, when they can show nothing of their Own, that may compare with the Ancients, to argue for their Opinion from the Writings of those, who disclaim it.

But, my Lord, I must not enter into this Controversy now, Rh