OR A COMPLEAT COLLECTION OF THE POETS, Especially THE MOST EMINENT OF ALL AGES. THE ANTIENTS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE MODERNS, IN THEIR SEVERAL ALPHABETS. With some Observations and reflexions upon many of them, particularly those of our own Nation. TOGETHER With a Prefatory Discourse of By EDWARD PHILLIPS. el ΐδ Ολβιος ἵντινα μεσαι φιλεῦνται; γλύκερη οἱ ἀπὸ δόματος ρεει ανδή. Hesiod Theogn. LONDON, PRINTED FOR CHARLES SMITH, AT THE ANGEL NEAR THE INNER TEMPLE GATE IN FLEETSTREET. ANNO DOм. MDCLXXV. ORIGINAL DEDICATORY PREFACE OF EDWARD PHILLIPS. To the most Learned, Virtuous, and by me most Honoured, Pair of Friends, THOMAS STANLEY of Cumberlow - Green, in Hertfordshire, and EDWARD SHERBURN, Clerk of his Majesty's Ordinance in the Tower of London, Esq. I. As oft as I seriously consider with myself, most worthy Associates in Learning and Virtue, and my most honoured Friends, what a vast difference there is, or at least seems to be, between one part of Mankind and the other; how near the intelligence of Angels the one, how beneath the ingenuity and industry of many brute animals the other; how aspiring to the perfection of knowlege the one, how immersed in swinish sloth and ignorance the other; I am apt to wonder how it could possibly be imagined that the same rationality of soul should inform alike, as we are obliged to believe by the authority of Sacred Scriptures, and the doctrine of the Soul's immortality, the whole mass and frame of Human Nature; and not rather that there should be a gradation of Notion from the lowest brute up to the Angelic region. 2. But that calling to mind the common maxim of philosophy, that the perfection of Soul is the same in the Infant, as in the Ripe of age; only acting more or less vigorously, according to the capacity of the organs; I thence collect that there is also a different capacity of the organs, whence ariseth a different spirit and constitution, or some intervening cause, by which it either acts or lies dormant, even in persons of the same age. 3. The first is that MELIOR NATURA, which the Poet speaks of; with which whoever is amply endued, take that man from his infancy; throw him into the deserts of Arabia; there let him converse some years with tigers and leopards; and at last bring him where civil society and conversation abides, and ye shall see how on a sudden, the scales and dross of his barbarity purging off by degrees, he will start up a prince or legislator, or some such illustrious person. 4. The other is that noble thing, called EDUCATION. This is that harp of Orpheus, that lute of Amphion, so elegantly figured by the poets to have wrought such miracles among irrational and insensible creatures, which raiseth beauty even out of deformity; order and regularity out of chaos and confusion; and which if thoroughly and rightly prosecuted, would be able to civilize the most savage natures, and root out barbarism and ignorance from off the face of the earth. 5. Those, who have either of these qualifications singly may justly be termed MEN; those who have both united in an happy conjunction, MORE THAN MEN those, who have neither of them in any competent measure, certainly in the conduct of their lives, LESS THAN MEN. And of this last sort is composed that greater part by far of our habitable world, (for what the nature and distinction is of the inlabitants of other orbs is to us utterly unknown, though not any where circumscribed, but diffused alike through the four quarters;) commonly called the Vulgar or Multitude: I mean not altogether those of the lowest birth or fortune, but those, of what degree or quality soever, who live Sardanapalian lives, τῶν ἀνδράποδων τρόπω, as the philosopher hath it; not caring to understand aught beyond to eat, drink, and play. 6. And no wonder if the memories of such persons as these sink with their bodies into the earth, and lie buried in profound obscurity and oblivion; when, even among those that tread the paths of glory and honour, those who have signalized themselves either by great actions in the field, or by noble arts of peace, or by the monuments of their written works more lasting sometimes than brass or marble, very many, but especially of the writing party, have fallen short of their deserved immortality of name; and lie under a total eclipse; or at least cast but a faint and glimmering light, like those innumerable seeds of Stars in the Galaxy, not distinctly to be discerned by any telescope.. 7. And indeed there is an exact ressemblance between the fate of writers, and the common fate of Mankind. For as in human affairs, some men never so virtuously, never so bravely acting, are passed by unvalued, unrewarded, or at least, not deserving ill, fall by unhappy lot into unrea→ |