probable that these, could they be recovered,
would decide the controversy.

"But so long as ARISTOPHANES in the Old Comedy, and PLAUTUS in the New
are extant; while the Tragedies of EURIPIDES, SOPHOCLES, and SENECA are
to be had: I can never see one of those Plays which are now written, but
it increases my admiration of the Ancients. And yet I must acknowledge
further, that to admire them as we ought, we should understand them
better than we do. Doubtless, many things appear flat to us, whose wit
depended upon some custom or story, which never came to our knowledge; or
perhaps upon some criticism in their language, which, being so long dead,
and only remaining in their books, it is not possible they should make us
know it perfectly.

"To read MACROBIUS explaining the propriety and elegancy of many words in
VIRGIL, which I had before passed over without consideration as common
things, is enough to assure me that I ought to think the same of TERENCE;
and that, in the purity of his style, which TULLY so much valued that he
ever carried his _Works_ about him, there is yet left in him great room
for admiration, if I knew but where to place it.

"In the meantime, I must desire you to take notice that the greatest man
of the last Age, BEN. JOHNSON, was willing to give place to them in all
things. He was not only a professed imitator of HORACE, but a learned
plagiary of all the others. You track him everywhere in their snow. If
HORACE, LUCAN, PETRONIUS _Arbiter_, SENECA, and JUVENAL had their own
from him; there are few serious thoughts that are new in him. You will
pardon me, therefore, if I presume, he loved their fashion; when he wore
their clothes.

"But since I have otherwise a great veneration for him, and you,
EUGENIUS! prefer him above all other poets: I will use no farther
argument to you than his example. I will produce Father BEN. to you,
dressed in all the ornaments and colours of the Ancients. You will need
no other guide to our party, if you follow him: and whether you consider
the bad plays of our Age, or regard the good ones of the last: both the
best and worst of the Modern poets will equally instruct you to esteem
the Ancients."

CRITES had no sooner left speaking; but EUGENIUS, who waited with some
impatience for it, thus began:

"I have observed in your speech, that the former part of it is
convincing, as to what the Moderns have profited by the Rules of the
Ancients: but, in the latter, you are ca