Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/69

 there is no Wonder that their Successors, who were to write to a pre-possessed Audience, though otherwise Men of equal, perhaps greater Parts, failed of that Applause of which the great Masters were already in possession; for Copying nauseates more in Poetry, than any thing: So that Buchanan and Sannazarius, tho' admirable Poets, are not read with that Pleasure which Men find in Lucretius and Virgil, by any but their Country-men, because they wrote in a dead Language, and so were frequently obliged to use the same Turns of Thought, and always the same Words and Phrases, in the same Sense in which they were used before by the Original Authors; which forces their Readers too often to look back upon their Masters; and so abates of that Pleasure which Men take in Milton, Cowley, Butler, or Dryden, who wrote in their Mother-Tongue, and so were able to give that unconstrained Range and Turn to their Thoughts and Expressions that are truly necessary to make a compleat Poem.

It may therefore be very reasonably believed, that the natural Softness, Expressiveness and Fulness of the Greek Language gave great Encouragement to the Greek Poets to labour hard, when they