, he will find but very few Precepts in it, which he may not meet with in
Aristotle
, and which were not commonly known by all the Poets of the
Augustan
Age. His Way of expressing and applying them, not his Invention of them, is what we are chiefly to admire.
For this Reason I think there is nothing in the World so tiresome as the Works of those Criticks who write in a positive Dogmatick Way, without either Language, Genius, or Imagination. If the Reader would see how the best of the
Latin
Criticks writ, he may find their Manner very beautifully described in the Characters of
Horace, Petronius, Quintilian
, and