Of POLITE LEARNING.
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CHAP. IV.
A parallel between the rise and decline of ancient and modern learning.
Few subjects have been more frequently and warmly debated, than the comparative superiority of the ancients and moderns. It is unaccountable how a dispute, so trifling, could be contested with so much virulence. A dispute of this nature, could have no other consequences, if decided, but to teach young writers to despise the one side or the other. A dispute, therefore, which, if determined, might tend rather to prejudice our taste, than improve it, should have been argued with good nature, as it could not with success. For mere critics to be guilty of such scholastic rage, is not un-common,
