Father Bouhours, in his Maniere de bien penser, besides these several Kinds of Thoughts, has the true, the beautiful, the soft, the natural, the simple, the gay, and many more, which has spun the Subject so very fine, that it will not endure handling but by very tender Fingers.
True Thoughts and false Thoughts are often confounded, especially, if there's any Point, Glittering or Glaring in the Latter. Something like distinguishing the one from the other is attempted in the Guardian, No 110. But I cannot help thinking that it does not deserve the Recommendation with which it is introduced in that Paper. We are told, the Remarks are very curious and just, and must of Consequence conclude, the Applause which the Author sinks, because 'twas in favour of himself, was so too. A very pretty Way of returning a Compliment which he could not accept of without Offence to his Modesty; but, I humbly conceive, the Remarks are not very curious, if they are just; the same having been made a Hundred times before the publishing of them in the critical Letter; and whoever would be at the Trouble of taking Dryden and Lee's Tragedies to pieces, would find enough of the like Curiosities.
The first is, Lee makes one of his Persons a Cartesian Philosopher, 2 or 3000 Years before Descartes was born: Why did not the Critick remember this too in the same Tragedy Oedipus?
————As oft I have at Athens seen,
The Stage arise, and the big Clouds descend.
Several Hundred Years before there was such a Thing heard of as a Stage at Athens.
The next Thing this Critick takes notice of, is Dryden's making Cleomenes a Copernican 2000 Years before Copernicus's Time. The Rest of the Criticisms turn upon the Improbability that Don Sebastian King of Portugal understood Latin, tho' he never prayed to God in any other Language; or that the Emperor of Barbary had ever heard of the Names of Bacchus, Cupid, Castor, and Pollux, or the Mufti of Archimedes, tho' we are credibly informed, that most of the Greek and Roman Learning was translated into Arabick; and it is well known that the Arabians were the greatest Encouragers of Arts and Sciences for three or four Centuries, when they were buried all over Christendom under the Rubbish of Monkery and Barbarism; and the Revivers of Learning were obliged to them for their Translations and Comments, which were turned into Latin out of Arabick. I have not only read of a Translation of Aristotle with Comments by Aben Rois, and of Euclid by Nassir Eddyn, with Notes, but of an Arabick Ovid, where the Fable is the Foundation of the Work, and several other Classicks in the Arabick Tongue. How easy would it be to fill up such Critical Epistles as that in the Guardian with as just and curious Remarks out of the best Epick Poets! How has Chaucer confounded the Sacred Scripture History with Pagan Fables:
There by the Fount Narcissus pin'd alone:
There Sampson was, and wiser Solomon:
Medea's Charms were there.
Dryden from Chauc.
Ariosto does the same in the xxxii Book of Orlando Furioso: