by the Examples of Princes, and by the Precepts of Laws; such, I mean, as should be Designed to Form Manners, to Restrain Excesses, to Encourage Industry, to Prevent Mens Expences beyond their Fortunes, to Countenance Virtue, 5 and Raise that True Esteem due to Plain Sense and Common Honesty.

But to Spin off this Thread which is already Grown too long: What Honour and Request the antient Poetry has Lived in may not only be Observed from the Universal 10 Reception and Use in all Nations from China to Peru, from Scythia to Arabia, but from the Esteem of the Best and the Greatest Men as well as the Vulgar. Among the Hebrews, David and Solomon, the Wisest Kings, Job and Jeremiah, the Holiest Men, were the best Poets of their Nation and 15 Language. Among the Greeks, the Two most renowned Sages and Law-givers were Lycurgus and Solon, whereof the Last is known to have excelled in Poetry, and the first was so great a Lover of it, That to his Care and Industry we are said by some Authors to owe the Collection 20 and Preservation of the loose and scattered Pieces of Homer in the Order wherein they have since appeared. Alexander is reported neither to have Travelled nor Slept without those admirable Poems always in his Company. Phalaris, that was Inexorable to all other Enemies, Relented 25 at the Charms of Stesichorus his Muse. Among the Romans, the Last and Great Scipio passed the soft Hours of his Life in the Conversation of Terence, and was thought to have a Part in the composition of his Comedies. Cæsar was an Excellent Poet as well as Orator, and Composed a 30 Poem in his Voyage from Rome to Spain, Relieving the Tedious Difficulties of his March with the Entertainments of his Muse. Augustus was not only a Patron, but a Friend and Companion of Virgil and Horace, and was himself both an Admirer of Poetry and a pretender too, as far 35 as his Genius would reach or his busy Scene allow. 'Tis

true, since his Age we have few such Examples of great Princes favouring or affecting Poetry, and as few perhaps of great Poets deserving it. Whether it be that the fierceness of the Gothick Humors, or Noise of their perpetual Wars, frighted it away, or that the unequal mixture of the 5 Modern Languages would not bear it, Certain it is, That the great Heighths and Excellency both of Poetry and Musick fell with the Roman Learning and Empire, and have never since recovered the Admiration and Applauses that before attended them. Yet such as they are amongst us, they 10 must be confest to be the Softest and Sweetest, the most General and most Innocent Amusements of common Time and Life. They still find Room in the Courts of Princes and the Cottages of Shepherds. They serve to Revive and Animate the dead Calm of poor or idle Lives, and to Allay 15 or Divert the violent Passions and Perturbations of the greatest and the busiest Men. And both these Effects are of equal use to Humane Life; for the Mind of Man is like the Sea, which is neither agreable to the Beholder nor the Voyager in a Calm or in a Storm, but is so to both 20 when a little Agitated by gentle Gales; and so the Mind, when moved by soft and easy Passions or Affections. I know very well that many, who pretend to be Wise by the Forms of being Grave, are apt to despise both Poetry and Musick as Toys and trifles too light for the Use or Enter- 25 tainment of serious Men. But whoever find themselves wholly insensible to these Charms would, I think, do well to keep their own Counsel, for fear of Reproaching their own Temper, and bringing the Goodness of their Natures, if not of their Understandings, into Question. It may be 30 thought at least an ill Sign, if not an ill Constitution, since some of the Fathers went so far as to esteem the Love of Musick a Sign of Predestination, as a thing Divine, and Reserved for the Felicities of Heaven it self. While this World lasts, I doubt not but the Pleasure and Request 35

of these Two Entertainments will do so too; and happy those that content themselves with these or any other so Easy and so Innocent, and do not trouble the World or other Men, because they cannot be quiet themselves, 5 though no body hurts them!

When all is done, Human Life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward Child, that must be Play'd with and Humor'd a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep. and then the Care is over.

NOTES

THE essays 'Upon the Ancient and Modern Learning' and 'Of Poetry' were published in the second part of Temple's Miscellanea, which appeared in November, 1690. The third edition, containing the author's final revision, has been used as the basis of the present text (Miscellanea, the Second Part, in Four Essays: I. Upon Ancient and Modern Learning. II. Upon the Gardens of Epicurus. III. Upon Heroick Virtue. IV. Upon Poetry. By Sir William Temple, Baronet. Juvat antiquos accedere Fontes. The Third Edition, Corrected and Augmented by the Author, London, 1692). Temple's posthumous 'Defence of the Essay upon Antient and Modern Learning', published by Swift in Miscellanea, The Third Part, 1701, should also be consulted by the student.

The first, and in fact both, of the essays were provoked by the so-called controversy of Ancients and Moderns, which had been precipitated, or rather given a new turn, by Charles Perrault, who read a poem on the superiority of the moderns, Le Siècle de Louis le Grand, at a meeting of the French Academy on January 27, 1687; and in the following year Fontenelle published his Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes, and Perrault the first volume of his elaborate defence, the Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes. In the controversy that ensued, Boileau, Dacier, and others espoused the cause of the ancients against Perrault and Fontenelle. Temple's essay focussed English attention on the controversy, and resulted not only in a general discussion, in which William Wotton, Rymer, and others took part, but more especially in a bitter quarrel on the authenticity of the Letters of Phalaris, which Temple had mentioned as an illustration of the literary superiority of the ancients (cf. note to 34. 30 sq.). Rigault's Histoire de la Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes, 1856, is still the best account of the whole matter, for England as well as for France: cf. Brunetière, Évolution des Genres, ch. iv; Spingarn, Critical Essays of the

Seventeenth Century, vol. i, p. lxxxviii sq.; Vial and Denise, Idées et Doctrines littéraires du XVIIe siècle, pp. 247-90; Daniels, Saint-Évremond en Angleterre, 1907; Jebb, Life of Bentley; Macaulay, Essay on Temple; and D.N.B. s.v. Temple and Bentley. PAGE 2. 20. The Antediluvian World, i. e. Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth, the first part of which, describing Paradise and the Deluge, appeared in an English dress in 1684, three years after the Latin original; the second part was published in 1689.

21. The Plurality of Worlds, i. e. Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes, 1686, translated into English by John Glanvill in 1688.

PAGE 3. 4. A small Piece concerning Poesy. In 1688, Fontenelle published a volume of Poésies Pastorales, which contained, in addition to the very tame pastorals themselves, a Discours sur la Nature de l'Églogue and the highly significant Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes.

PAGE 4. 20. The fragments of the Egyptian priest Manetho (B. C. 283-246) on the history of Egypt are collected by Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec., 1856.

21. Justin, Hist. Philippi, ii. 1. 5.

22. Herodotus, bks. iii, iv, passim; Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. Hist. xix. 73.

PAGE 9. 16. Temple's account of the Brahmans of India is almost wholly derived from Strabo, Geog. xv. I. 59-73: on Calanus (10. 29), see ibid. xv. 1. 64; on Zormanochages, i. e. Zarmanochegas (11. 12), ibid. xv. I. 73.

PAGE 11. 26. Herodotus, iv. 2.

PAGE 12. 30. Missionary Jesuits. Temple seems to have in mind two Portuguese Jesuits, from whose works his account of China (to 13. 32) is for the most part derived: Alvaro Semmedo, author of the Imperio de la China (Engl. transl., The History of the Great and Renowned Monarchy of China, 1655; cf. pp. 31-58, 86-96), and Gabriel de Magalhaens, author of the Doze Excellencias da China (Engl. transl., New History of China, 1688); cf. also the work of the Belgian Jesuit, Philippe Couplet, Confucius, Sinarum Philosophus, sive Scientia Sinica Latine exposita, 1687.

PAGE 15. 4. Amautas, the sages of the Peruvian Incas; cf.