Wanting a purer light from Heaven, the most radiant spirits of antiquity were bewildered; one in particular, the mildest and most undaunted of antient Worthies, who had a sufficient portion of heroic philanthropy to prefer the benefit of mankind to every selfish consideration, had yet his hours of diffidence and despondency.

Had he lived in those early times, the generous enthusiasm of the antient world would have idolized his name.

In that of fighting, Madam; You would have call'd to mind that antient story Of the stout Giants that wag'd War with Heaven; Just so I fought, and for as glorious prize, Your excellent Ladiship. Am.

Amongst his Letters, is one upon the Denti Scalps, or Tooth-picks of the Antients: Another contains an imitation of Horace: Epist.

I do wonder how any reasonable man can be drunk; therefore every wise man take Counsell and example by me, and he may see very plainely what an odious thing it is; for you must follow your leader, and vertue, which is an Antient Tho.

His name is well knowne in Lincolnsheire neere the fenns: there were his family antient gentlemen before the Conquest; some say ever since the flood.

That the household poet should have survived the other wits of the establishment, can only be explained by the circumstance of his office being more easily converted into one of mere pomp and ceremony, and coming thus to afford an antient and well-sounding name for a moderate sinecure.

The antients, though they probably did not stand in any great awe of their deities, have yet abstained very much from any minute or dramatic representation of their feelings and affections.

It is quite clear, indeed, throughout the whole of the work, that an apologetical explanation of certain religious opinions is intended; and there is a considerable abatement of that tone of insolence with which the improved Christians are apt to treat the bungling specimens of piety to be met with in the more antient churches.

Slavery more tolerable amongst the antients than in our colonies.

The laws of the antients never authorised the making slaves, but of those nations whom they had conquered; yet they were heathens, and we are christians.

The substance of his answer is, "The explanation and etymology of these words require a degree of knowledge in all the antient northern languages, and a skill in the application of that knowledge, which I am very far from assuming; and though I am almost persuaded by some of my own conjectures concerning them, I am not willing, by an apparently forced and far-fetched derivation, to justify your imputation of etymological legerdemain.

Mr. Gildon observes, 'that this Tragedy is written after the manner of the antients, which is much more natural and easy, than that of our modern Dramatists.'

He considered the antients and moderns, not as parties, or rivals for fame, but as architects upon one and the same plan, the Art of Poetry.

His Familiarity with the Customs, Manners, Actions, and Writings of the Antients, makes him a very delicate Observer of what occurs to him in the present World.

The Manner of doing this sometimes indeed creates Debates; on such Occasions we have Recourse to the Rules of Love among the Antients.

The Antients had a Secret to give a lasting Beauty, Colour, and Sweetness to some of their choice Flowers, which flourish to this Day, and which few of the Moderns can effect.

Twas by comparing modern Italy with the idea he had of the antient Romans, which furnished him with the hint of writing his Liberty, in three parts.

The first is Antient and Modern Italy compared.

A lady proud she was, of antient blood, Yet oft her fear, her pride made crouchen low: She felt, or fancy'd in her fluttering mood, All the diseases which the spitals know, And sought all physic which the shops bestow; And still new leaches, and new drugs would try, Her humour ever wavering too and fro; For sometimes she would laugh, and sometimes cry, And sudden waxed wroth, and all she knew not why.

That among the moderns, their success has been, greatest who have most endeavoured to make these antients their pattern.

But as this piece seems to have been the original of a new sort of poem, the Pastoral Comedy, in Italy, it cannot so well be considered as a copy of the antients.

Poor Furius, where any of his cotemporaries are spoken well of, quitting the ground of the present dispute, steps back a thousand years, to call in the succour of the antients.

Mr. Spence in one of his chapters on Allegory, in his Polymetis, has endeavoured to shew, how very little our poets have understood the allegories of the antients, even in their translations of them; and has instanced Mr. Dryden's translation of the Aeneid, as he thought him one of our most celebrated poets.

[Footnote 52: "It was a received opinion amongst the antients that a large, busy, well peopled village, situated in a country thoroughly cultivated, was a more magnificent sight than the palaces of noblemen and princes in the midst of neglected lands."