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 which the Ancients themselves, had they been alive, would not have been ashamed of.

If this be so, as I verily believe it is, sure now (it will be objected) It is evident that the Ancients had a greater Force of Genius than the Moderns can pretend to. Will it be urged, that here also they had an Advantage by being born first? Have these Arts a fixed Foundation in Nature; or were they not attained to by Study? If by Nature, why have we heard of no Orators among the Inhabitants of the Bay of Soldania, or eminent Poets in Peru? If by Study, why not now, as well as formerly, since Printing has made Learning cheap and easie? Does it seem harder to speak and write like Cicero or Virgil, than to find out the motions of the Heavens, and to calculate the Distances of the Stars? What can be the Reason of this Disparity?

The Reasons are several, and scarce one of them of such a Nature as can now be helped, and yet not conclusive against the Comparative Strength of Understanding, evidently discernible in the Productions of the Learned Men of the present, and immediately foregoing Ages; to which I would be understood strictly to confine my Notion of the Word Modern.