680 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 16Q4. 



for example, where oratory has but a secondary share, he believes that the 

 moderns may have equalled the ancients ; and he thinks that the memoirs of 

 Philip Comines, and F. Paul's History of the Council of Trent, may be set 

 against any of the histories of the ancients with which it can be proper to com- 

 pare them. (Chap. 3.) 



This leads him to examine M. Perrault's Hypothesis, who asserts that modern 

 eloquence, and modern poetry are preferable to the ancient ; there he goes 

 through the several reasons which M. Perrault brings to establish his hypothesis, 

 and concludes that they are insufficient ; particulariy he seems to think it unfair, 

 that the translations of the pieces of eloquence of the ancients should be set 

 against original pieces of the moderns, since every language has beauties of its 

 own, which can never be reached in another, though ever so exact and elegant. 

 (Chap. 4.) 



In the fifth chapter he considers ancient and modern grammar, as it comes 

 under the cognizance of critics, or of philosophers. For the first, which he 

 calls Mechanical Grammar, he supposes that some moderns have understood 

 the analogy of the Greek and Latin as well as any of the ancients; and he 

 thinks that modern tongues have been as critically scanned as anv of the ancient 

 ones, especially English and French, which he particularly instances. For Phi- 

 losophical Grammar, he recommends Bishop Wilkins's Essay towards a real 

 Character and Philosophical Language, and the third book of Mr. Locke's 

 Essay on the Human Understanding, as original pieces that antiquity has 

 nothing to set against. (Chap. 5.) 



When he comes to compare ancient and modern architecture, statuary, and 

 painting, he abridges what M. Perrault had said already upon the same subjects 

 in his Parallel of the Ancients and Moderns, wherein he gives the moderns 

 every where the preference, without interposing his own judgment. (Chap. 6.) 

 After this he comes to inquire into ancient and modern philosophy and ma- 

 thematics ; but before he speaks particularly of them, he examines Sir W. T.'s 

 Hypothesis of the History of Learning step by step, against whose Essay upon 

 Ancient and Modern Learning, a great part of his book seems to be levelled. 

 Sir Wm. Temple had exceedingly commended the learning of Pythagoras and 

 the ancient sages of Greece, as also that of the old Egyptians, Chaldeans, 

 Arabs, Indians, and Chinese. Our author thinks that Pythagoras's chief excel- 

 lency lay in political knowledge: and that though he was a better mathemati- 

 cian and philosopher than any man of that time, yet since he is commended 

 chiefly for finding the 47th Proposition of the First Book of Euclid, his skill 

 in those matters was, comparatively speaking, but very indifferent, which he 

 also affirms of the ancient sages. (Chap. 7, 8.) 



