This page has been validated.
and Moderns.
223
led the First in the Force and Richness of Imagination, and hath rivalled the Last in Justness of Thought, and Exactness of the Work. Spencer may, perhaps, dispute the Pastoral, even with Theocritus; for I dare prefer him to Virgil, and in him alone the Sweetness and Rusticity of the Doric Muse was to be found, till Mr. Philips of Cambridge rose, who hath assembled all the Beauties of the Arcadian Poetry, and restored their Simplicity, Language and Manners to the Swains. Here then, my Lord, we stand. I may with great Modesty and Justice own, that several Pieces of English Composure are nothing inferiour to the choicest Productions of Antiquity, but I cannot
pro-
