600 MEN OF LEARNING AND GENIUS. 



397 Ambrose, bishop of Milan. 



415 Maciobius, the Roman grammarian. 



428 Eutropius, the Roman historian. 



524 Bcetius, the Roman poet and Platonic Philosopher. Bellamy. Preston. Medpath. 



529 Procopius, of Csesarea, the Roman historian. Holcrqft. 



Here ends the illustrious list of ancient, or, as they are styled, Classic authors, 

 for whom mankind are indebted to Greece and Rome, those two theatres of human 

 glory; but it will ever be regretted, that a small part only of their writings have 

 come to our hands. This was owing to the barbarous policy of those illiterate 

 pagans who, in the fifth century, subverted the Roman empire, and in which 

 practices they were joined soon after by the Saracens, or followers of Mahomet, 

 Constantinople alone had escaped the ravages of the barbarians; and to the few 

 literati who sheltered themselves within its walls, is chiefly owing the preservation 

 of those valuable remains of antiquity. To learning, civility, and refinement, 

 succeeded worse than Gothic ignorance — the superstition and buffoonery of the 

 church of Rome ; Europe therefore produces few names worthy of record during 

 the space ot a thousand years; a period which historians, with great propriety, 

 denominate the dark or Gothic ages. 



The invention of printing contributed to the revival of learning in the sixteenth 

 century, from which memorable sera a race of men have sprung up in a n&K soil, 

 France, Germany, and Britain ; who, if they do not exceed, at least equal, the 

 greatest geniuses of antiquity. Of these the British Classics rank among the first j 

 with whose names we shall finish our list. 

 A.C. 



735 Bede, a priest of Northumberland ; History of the Saxons, Scots, &c. 

 1 801 King Alfred ; history, philosophy, and poetry. 

 1259 Matthew Paris, monk of St. Albans; History of England. 

 1292 Roger Bacon, Somersetshire; natural philosophy. 

 1308 John Fordun, a priest of Mearnsshire ; History of Scotland, 

 1400 Geofl'ry Chaucer, London; the father of English poetry. 

 1402 John Gower, Wales ; the poet. 



1535 Sir Thomas Moore, London; histoiy, politics, divinity. 

 15^2 John Leland, London ; lives and antiquities. 

 1568 Roger Ascham, Yorkshire; philology and polite literature. 

 15/2 liev. John Knox, the Scotch reformer ; History of the church of Scotland. 

 1582 George Buchanan, Dumbartonshire ; History of Scotland, Psalms of David, 



Politics, &c- 

 1598 Edmund Spenser, London ; Fairy Queen, and other poems. 



1615 — 25 Beaumont and Fletcher ; 53 dramatic pieces. 



1616 William Shakespeare, Stratford; 42 tragedies and comedies. 



1622 John Napier, of Marcheston, Scotland, discoverer of logarithms. 



1623 William Cambden, London; history and antiquities. 



1626 Lord chancellor Bacon, London ; natural philosophy and literature in general 



1634 Lord Chief Justice Coke, Norfolk ; laws of England. 



1638 Ben Jonson, London; 53 dramatic pieces. 



1641 Sir Henry Spelman, Norfolk ; laws and antiquities. 



1654 John Selden, Sussex; antiquities and laws. 



1657" Dr William Harvey. Kent; discovered the circulation of the blood. 

 1667 Abraham Cowley, London • miscellaneous poetry. 



1674 John Milton, London ; Paradise Lost, Regained, and various other pieces 

 in verse and prose. 



1674 Hyde, earl of Clarendon, Wiltshire; History of the Civil Wars in England. 



1675 James Gregory, Aberdeen; mathematics, geometry, and optics. 



1677 Reverend JJr. Isaac Barrow, London; natural philosophy, mathematics, and 



sermons. 

 1680 Samuel Butler, Worcestershire; Hudibras, a burlesque poem. 



1655 Thomas Ot way, London; 10 tragedies and comedies with other poems. 

 3687 Edmund Waller, pucks; poems, speeches, letters, &c. 



1688 Dr. Ralph; Cud worth, Somersetshire; Intellectual System. 



1689 Dr. Thomas Sydenham, Dorsetshire; History of Physic. 



1690 Nathaniel Lee, London ; 1 1 tragedies. 



Robert Barclay, Edinburgh ; Apology for the Quakers. 



1691 Honourable Robert Boyle; natural and experimental philosophy and theo- 



logy 

 Sir George M'Kenzie, Dundee ; antiquities and laws of Scotland 



