Page:Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue (Elstob 1715).djvu/39

 there is a very easy and natural Connexion between these two, and these same Antiquaries of OURS, must be either very dull and stupid Animals, or a strange kind of cross-grain’d and perverse Fellows, to be always putting a Force upon Nature, and running out of a plain Road. He must either insinuate that they are indeed such, or that Horace's Observation is not just, or that for the Word invita we ought to have a better reading, for which he will be forc’d to consult the Antiquaries. I know not how some of the great Ora- tors, be has mention'd, will relish his Compliments upon the Score of Eloquence, when he has said such hard things against Antiquaries; many of them, and those of chief ote, were his Censure just and universal, must of necessity be involv'd in it. For example, the late Bishop of Rochester, of whom he says, "He was the correctest Writer of the Age, and comes nearest the Great Originals of Greece and Rome, by studious Imitation of the Ancients." So that, as I take it, he was an Antiquary: If he excludes English Antiquities, I desire him to remember the present Bishop of Rochester, of whom he has given this true Character, "Dr. Atterbury writeth with the fewest Faults, and greatest Excellencies of any who have studied to mix Art and Nature in their Compositions," &c. He hath however thought fit to adorn the Subject of Antiquities with the Beauties of his Stile, without any Force upon Nature, or the being obliged to forsake her easy and unconstrain’d Method of applying Peony fester to proper Thoughts. The Bishop of St. Asaph hath shewn his Skill in Antiquities, by more Instances than one; yet do I not find, that even in the Opinion of this Gentleman, it hath spoil'd his Stile. I shall add to these the late and present Bishops of Worcester, the bagel