Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/359

 indifferent Books; since some have taken as much Pains, in their Critical Annotations (e), to expose Authors who have had the good Luck to be exceedingly commended by learned Men, as ever others did to praise them.

Soon after Learning was restored, when Copies of Books, by Printing, were pretty well multiplied, Criticism began; which first was exercised in Setting out Correct Editions of Ancient Books; Men being forced to try to mend the Copies of Books, which they saw were so very negligently written. It soon became the Fashionable Learning; and after Erasmus, Budaeus, Beatus Rhenanus and Turnebus had dispersed that sort of Knowledge through England, France, Germany, and the Low-Countries, which before had been kept altogether amongst the Italians, it was, for about One Hundred and Twenty Years, cultivated with very great Care: And if since it has been at a Stand, it has not been because the Parts of Men are sunk; but because the Subject is, in a manner, exhausted; or, at least, so far drained, that it requires more Labour, and a greater Force of Genius, now to gather good Gleanings, than formerly to bring home a plentiful Harvest; and yet this Age has produced