have arisen from friendship contracted with men of worth and talents, and the society of persons of wit and genius; and never was there an era in which he could be so amply indulged with regard to both. I know there are numbers who laugh at those who speak with admiration of past times, and lament the degeneracy of the present, as idle declaimers, laudatores temporis acti; with which the world has constantly been furnished in all nations, from age to age; but that in reality all times have been much alike. In order that a fair comparison may be made between the period I have been speaking of, and that which followed to the present time, I shall here set down a list of the extraordinary men who then flourished together.
LIST of Literary Characters.
Temple,
Garth,
Otway,
Dryden,
Steele,
Rowe,
Swift,
Wycherly,
Newton,
Addison,
Vanbrugh,
Locke,
Pope,
Southern,
Boyle,
Prior,
Young,
Berkeley,
Congreve,
Parnell,
Atterbury,
Gay,
Arbuthnot,
Tillotson, &c.
Of Men in High Rank.
Duke of Marlborough,
Lord Peterborow,
Lord Oxford,
Lord Bolingbroke,
Lord Bathurst,
