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 thought requisite, is evident to any Man that reads Quinctilian's Institutions, and the Rhetorical Tracts of Cicero. This exceedingly takes off the Wonder: Eloquence may lie in common for Ancients and Moderns, yet those only shall be most excellent that cultivate it most, who live in an Age that is accustomed to, and will bear nothing but Masculine, unaffected Sence; which likewise must be cloathed with the most splendid Ornaments of Rhetorick.

Sir William Temple will certainly agree with me in this Conclusion, that former Ages made greater Orators, and nobler Poets, than these later Ages have done; though perhaps he may disagree with me about the Way by which I came to my Conclusion; since hence it will follow, that the present Age, with the same Advantages, under the same Circumstances, might produce a Demosthenes, a Cicero, a Horace, or a Virgil; which, for any thing hitherto said to the contrary, seems to be very probable.

But, though the Art of Speaking, assisted by all these Advantages, seems to have been at a greater heighth amongst the Greeks and Romans, than it is at present, yet it will not follow from thence, that every Thing which is capable of