e
_palpable_ refutation, as they are certainly guilty of the same mean
error, in prejudging the whole question, and refusing to listen even
to the plain evidence of their own feelings, or, in some cases, to the
voice of their own senses.

From this preface it is already abundantly clear what side _we_ take
in this dispute about modern literature and the antique.[4] And we now
propose to justify our leaning by a general review of the Pagan
authors, in their elder section--that is, the Grecians. These will be
enough in all conscience, for one essay; and even for them we meditate
a very cursory inquest; not such as would suffice in a grand
ceremonial day of battle--a _justum proelium_, as a Roman would
call it--but in a mere perfunctory skirmish, or (if the reader objects
to that word as pedantic, though, really, it is a highly-favoured word
amongst ancient divines, and with many a

'philosopher,
Who has read Alexander Ross over,')

why, in that case, let us indulge his fastidious taste by calling it
an autoschediastic combat, to which, surely, there can be no such
objection. And as the manner of the combat is autoschediastic or
extemporaneous, and to meet a hurried occasion, so is the reader to
understand that the object of our disputation is not the learned, but
the unlearned student; and our purpose, not so much to discontent the
one with his painful acquisitions, as to console the other under what,
upon the old principle of _omne ignotum pro magnifico_, he is too apt
to imagine his irreparable disadvantages. We set before us, as our
especial auditor, the reasonable man of plain sense but strong
feeling, who wishes to know how much he has lost, and what injury the
gods did him, when, though making him, perhaps, poetical, they cut
short his allowance of Latin, and, as to Greek, gave him not a jot
more than a cow has in her side pocket.

[Footnote 4: In general usage, '_The antique_' is a phrase limited to
the expression of art; but improperly so. It is quite as legitimately
used to denote the _literature_ of ancient times, in contradistinction
to the modern. As to the term _classical_, though generally employed
as equivalent to Greek and Roman, the reader must not forget this is
quite a false limitation, contradicting the very reason for applying
the word in _any_ sense to literature. For the application arose thus:
The social body of Rome being divided into six classes, of which the
lo