polite Literature, I think my self no great loser by exchanging the delicacy of the present, for that of past ages. But we rarely meet with persons that have a true Judgment: which, in many Scholars, renders Literature a very tiresome knowledge. Of all the men I ever knew, Antiquity is the most indebted to Mr. Waller: he lends it his beautiful Imagination, and his nice and delicate Judgment; so that he enters into the genius of the Antients, not only to understand rightly what they thought, but still to embellish their thoughts.
I have seen within a few years, abundance of Criticks, and but few good Judges. Now, I don't affect that sort of learned men, who rack their brains to restore a Reading, which is not mended by the restitution. The whole mystery of their Learning lies in what we might as well be ignorant of, and they are absolute strangers to what's really worth knowing. As they are incapable of having nice Sentiments and Thoughts, so 'tis impossible for them to enter into the delicacy of a Sentiment, or the fineness of a Thought. They may succeed well enough in expounding Grammarians, who applied themselves to the same study, and whose genius was the same: but they can never hit that of a polite, well-bred man among the Antients, because theirs is diametrically opposite to it. In History, they neither mind Men nor Affairs: they lay the whole stress on Chronology; and for the date of a Consul's Death, will neglect the knowledge of his Character, and of the transactions during his Consulship. Tully, with them, will never be any more than a declaimer of Orations; or Cesar than a Writer of Commentaries: the Consul and the General escape their notice; the Spirit that animates their Works is unperceiv'd; and the principal matters they treat of, unknown.
