Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/63

 being accustomed from our Childhood to hear them commended, creates a Reverence. Yet though due Allowances ought to be made for these Pre-possessions, one has Reason to believe, that this Reverence for the Ancient Orators and Poets is more than Prejudice. (By Orators, I understand all those Writers in Prose who took pains to beautifie and adorn their Stile.) Their Works give us a very solid Pleasure when we read them. The best in their kind among the Moderns have been those who have read the Ancients with greatest Care, and endeavoured to imitate them with the greatest Accuracy. The Masters of Writing in all these several Ways, to this Day, appeal to the Ancients, as their Guides; and still fetch Rules from them, for the Art of Writing. Homer, and Aristotle, and Virgil, and Horace, and Ovid, and Terence, are now studied as Teachers, not barely out of Curiosity, by Modern Poets. So likewise are Demosthenes, Aristotle, Tully, Quinctilian, and Longinus, by those who would write finely in Prose. So that there is Reason to think that in these Arts the Ancients may have out-done the Moderns; though neither have they been neglected in these later Ages, in which we have seen extraordinary Productions,