Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/97

This acknowleged superiority was, however, no easy conquest over that national pride, with which every country is more or less tinctured. Every part of Europe was at one time or another candidates for this preheminence, which though they had not the good fortune to obtain, their attempts served in a subordinate degree to assist and refine the taste of their cotemporaries. Thus Spain exhibited fine examples of humour; Italy of delicacy; and Holland of freedom in enquiry. But to blend these excellencies and arrive at perfection, seemed reserved for the poets and philosophers of England and France in the illustrious reigns of Queen Anne and Lewis XIV. The writers of that period, not only did honour to their respective countries, but even to human nature. Like stars lost in each others brightness, tho'no