same, or anything of the former styles to be endured by the latter, so as they can no more last like the ancients, than excellent carvings in wood like those in marble or brass.
[Moreover the modern languages are inferior to
the ancient in dignity and beauty.]
[ibid. pp. 478–480]
It may perhaps be further affirmed in favour of the ancients, that the oldest books we have, are still, in their kind, the best. The two most ancient that I know of, in prose, among those we call profane authors, are Æsop's Fables, and Phalaris's Epistles—both living near the same time, which was that of Cyrus and Pythagoras. As the first has been agreed by all ages since for the greatest master in his kind, and all others of that sort have been but imitations of his original, so I think the Epistles of Phalaris to have more race, more spirit, more force of wit and genius, than any others I have ever seen, either ancient or modern. I know several learned men, or that usually pass for such, under the name of critics, have not esteemed them genuine, and Politian, with some others
