Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/65

 These Reasons I shall examine at large, because, if they are valid, they quite take away the Force of Sir William Temple's Hypothesis; and by removing the blind Admiration now paid to the Ancient Orators and Poets, set it upon such a Foot as will render the Reading of their Books more useful, because less superstitious. They are of several Sorts; some relating to Oratory, some to Poesie, and some in common to both.

I shall first speak of those which relate more particularly to Poetry, because it was much the ancientest Way of Writing in Greece; where their Orators owned, that they learned a great deal of what they knew, even in their own, as well as in other Parts of Learning, from their Poets. And here one may observe, that no Poetry can be Charming that has not a Language to support it. The Greek Tongue has a vast variety of long Words, wherein long and short Syllables are agreeably intermixed together, with great Numbers of Vowels and Diphthongs in the Middle-Syllables, and those very seldom clogged by the joyning of harsh-sounding Consonants in the same Syllable: All which Things give it a vast Advantage above any other Language that has ever yet been cultivated by Learned