Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/352

 transacted in their own Times, as we are reason of Matters of Fact, which were acted in the Reign of William the Conquerour. Wherefore if one reflects upon the Alteration which Printing has introduced into the State of Learning, when every Book once printed becomes out of Danger of being lost, or hurt by Copiers; and that Books may be compared, examined, and canvassed with much more Ease than they could before, it will not seem ridiculous to say, That Joseph Scaliger, Isaac Casaubon, Salmasius, Henricus Valesius, Selden, Usher, Bochart, and other Philologers of their Stamp, may have had a very comprehensive View of Antiquity, such a one as Strangers to those Matters, can have no Idea of; nay a much greater than, taken altogether, any one of the Ancients themselves ever had, or indeed, could have. Demosthenes and Aristophanes knew the State of their own Times better than Casaubon or Salmasius: But it is a Question whether Boëthius or Sidonius Apollinaris knew the State of Demosthenes's Time so well; yet these also are Ancients to us, and have left behind them Writings of a very estimable Value. Literary Commerce was anciently not so frequent as now it is, though the Roman Empire made it more easie than otherwise it could have been.

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