Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/360

 Men who, in the last, might have been reckoned with the Scaligers, and the Lipsius's. It is not very long since Holstenius, Bochart, and Gerhard Vossius died; but if they will not be allowed to have been of our Age, yet Isaac Vossius, Nicholas Heinsius, Frederick Gronovius, Ezekiel Spanheym and Graevius may come in; the two last of them are still alive, and the others died but a few Years since. England, perhaps, cannot shew a proportionable Stock of Criticks of this Stamp. In Henry VIII's Time there was an admirable Set of Philologers in the Nation; though there is great difference to be made between a good Critick, and a Man that writes Latin as easily and correctly as his Mother-Tongue. Sir Thomas More, Cardinal Poole, Linacre, Collet, Cheek, Ascham, and several more, often to be met with in Erasmus's Epistles, wrote Latin with a Purity that no Italian needed then to have been ashamed of. Let the Subject they wrote have been what it would, one may see by the Purity of their Stile, that they wrote in a Language which expressed their Thoughts without Constraint. A great Familiarity with the politest Authors of Antiquity was what these Men valued themselves much upon; and it was then the Delight of the Nation,