Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/90

 nament, nor affords a Variety. The Passion of Love, with those that always follow upon its being disappointed, had been shown already in the Story of Dido. But Monsieur Perrault seems to have had his Head possessed with the Idea of French Romances; which, to be sure, must never fail to end in a general Wedding.

For I observe, Secondly, That among other Arguments produced by him, to prove that the Ancients did not perfect their Oratory and Poesie, he urges this; That the Mind of Man, being an inexhaustible Fund of new Thoughts and Projects, every Age added Observations of its own to the former Store; so that they still increased in Politeness, and by Consequence, their Eloquence of all sorts, in Verse or Prose, must needs be more exact. And as a Proof of this Assertion, he instances in Matters of Love: wherein the Writings of the best bred Gentlemen of all Antiquity, for want of Modern Gallantry, of which they had no Notion, were rude and unpolished, if compared with the Poems and Romances of the present Age. Here Monsieur Perrault's Skill in Architecture seems to have deceived him: For there is a wide Difference between an Art that, having no Antecedent Foundation in Nature,