Pedants.—Others, to show their learning, or often from the prejudices of a school education, where they hear of nothing else, are always talking of the ancients, as something more than men, and of the moderns as something less. They are never without a classic or two in their pockets; they stick to the old good sense; they read none of the modern trash; and will show you plainly that no improvement has been made, in any one art or science, these last seventeen hundred years. I would by no means have you disown your acquaintance with the ancients; but still less would I have you brag of an exclusive intimacy with them. Speak of the moderns without contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry; judge them all by their merits, but not by their ages; and if you happen to have an Elzevir classic in your pocket, neither show it nor mention it. [Bath, Feb. 22, 1748.]
Blindness to Heroism.—Take into your consideration,
if you please, cases seemingly analogous;
but take them as helps only, not as guides. We are
really so prejudiced by our educations that, as the
ancients deified their heroes, we deify their madmen;
of which, with all due regard to antiquity, I take
Leonidas and Curtius to have been two distinguished
ones. And yet a solid pedant would, in a
