most certain. Now if the _Poets_ and _Criticks_ of all Ages have allowed
_Sophocles_, _Euripides_, and _Terence_ to have been good _Dramatick
Writers_, and _Aristotle_ and _Horace_ to have been _judicious
Criticks_, ought not their _Censure_ to weigh more with Men of Sense,
than the Fancies, of a Modern Pretender. To be plain, whoever Disputes
_Aristotle_ and _Horace_, Rules does as good as call the _Scaligers_,
_Vossii_, _Rapins_, _Bossu's_, _Daciers_, _Corneilles_, _Roscommons_,
_Normanby's_ and _Rymers_, _Blockheads_: A man must have a great deal of
Assurance, to be so free with such illustrious Judges.

"Of all the modern Dramatick Poets the Author of _the Trip to the
Jubilee_ has the least Reason to turn into Ridicule _Aristotle_ and
_Horace_, since 'tis to their _Rules_ which he has, in some measure
followed, that he owed the great success of that Play. Those _Rules_ are
no thing but a strict imitation of Nature, which is still the same in
all Ages and Nations: And because the Characters of _Wildair_,
_Angelica_, _Standard_ and _Smuggler_ are _natural_, and well pursued,
They have justly met _with Applause_; but then the Characters of
_Lurewell_ and _Clincher_ Sen. being _out_ of _Nature_ they have as
justly been condemned by all the Good Judges."

* Some _Scholars_, tho' by their constant Conversation with Antiquity,
they may know perfectly the sense of the Learned dead, and be perfect
masters of the Wisdom, be throughly informed of the State, and nicely
skill'd in the Policies of Ages long since past, yet by their retired
and unactive Life, and their neglect of Business, they are such
strangers to the Domestick Affairs and manners of their own Country and
Times, that they appear like the Ghosts of old _Romans_ rais'd by
Magick. Talk to them of the _Assyrian_ or _Persian_ Monarchies of the
_Grecian_ or _Roman_ Commonwealths, they answer like Oracles; They are