Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/386

 ter of their Learning of the West, as well as of their Hopes, and thither the Provinces of this Part of the World had always Resort: Whereas now every Kingdom standing upon its own Bottom, they are all mutually jealous of each others Glory, and in nothing more than in Matters of Learning in those Countries, where they have Opportunities to pursue it. About an Hundred and Fifty, or Two Hundred Years since, it was esteemed a very honourable Thing to write a true Ciceronian Style: This the Italians pretended to keep to themselves, and they would scarce allow that any Man beyond the Alpes, unless perhaps, Longolius and Cardinal Pole, wrote pure Roman Latin: This made other Nations strive to equal them, and one rarely meets with a Book written at that Time upon a Subject that would bear the Elegancies of Stile in bad Latin: When Critical Learning was in Fashion, every Nation had some few great Men at the same Time, or very near it, to set against those of another. Italy boasted of Robertus Titius, and Petrus Victorius; France had Joseph Scaliger, Isaac Casaubon, Cujacius, Pithaeus,