The Antiquaries the Translator speaks of would do Wonders, if they would make it out that the Letter sent to the King of Edessa, and the Passage in Josephus's Book XVIII, relating to our Saviour, are genuine, with several other Particularities, which are much insisted upon by Ecclesiastical Writers. The Spectator has told us something too of Antiquity, which wants the Confirmation of the Antiquaries, and that is a Quotation out of a Manuscript in the Vatican Library, where Longinus is made to say, Paul of Tarsus, the Patron of an Opinion not fully proved, must be reckon'd among the best Græcian Orators. This must be a downright Forgery: Longinus surely knew the Greek Tongue too well, to cry up the Eloquence of a Writer in it, who, as St. Jerome says, did not understand Grammar, and mentions the Places where he err'd, Propter Imperitiam Artis Grammaticæ. See Gregory on the Septuagint. It were to be wished, that the Ecclesiastical Writers, even of the earliest Centuries, had suffer'd nothing to escape them that was improbable, if not incredible. 'Tis also much wanted to have further Proof of the Ceasing of Oracles at the Nativity of our Saviour, and that Virgil prophesy'd of it in his fourth Eclogue. We should be still more oblig'd to them, if they would prove, that the Sibyl's Verses are a Prophecy of the same Thing, which Things are generally asserted in the Writings of the Ecclesiasticks. As to Oracles Lucian tells us, Answers were given in his Time, that of the Emperor Commodus 160 Years after, Juvenal makes their Ceasing to be only 100 Years after:
————Delphis Oracula cessant.
Theodoret writes, that Julian the Apostate received an Answer from Apollo at Delphos, 300 Years after the Birth of our Saviour. All which may be seen in Bishop Potter's Greek Antiquities, a most excellent Book; and if we had more such Antiquaries as that learned Prelate's and Mr. Basil Kennet's who wrote the Antiquities of Rome, we might at the same Time improve ourselves both in antient and polite Learning. These being, I think the two most valuable Pieces of the Kind in any Language. As the middle Way is safest in all Things, so as to the Antients to run them down as Perrault has done, or cry them up as Boileau is perhaps equally dangerous, and out of the Medium. Whatever Advantages we have had of the Antients, probably they had the same of those that preceeded them. This we know, that the Latins borrow'd as much from the Greeks as we have borrow'd from them; and it would be no difficult Matter to prove, that in all the Branches of polite Literature, the Moderns, particularly the English, have excell'd the Antients in as many as the Antients excelled them.
The Passage of my Lord Bacon's before cited, gave Occasion to Monsieur Perrault, to bring in that noble Author for an Evidence on his Side against the Antients: But Boileau vindicates him in this Point; and Father Bouhours, as another Instance of his excellent Judgement, declares he prefers the Lord Chancellor Bacon before the most celebrated Names of Antiquity. Rapin calls him the greatest Genius of England, and he has not more Glory from his own Countrymen than from the learned Men in France.
I expect no Quarter from the Dealers in monastick Learning, in Heraldry, and Genealogy, who generally doat upon them even to Frenzy. Du Val in his Geography informs us, that there is a Nation in America, bordering on the River of the Amazons, where old Women go off better than young; under a Notion, that the Knowledge of the One is preferable to the Vigour and Beauty of the Other. Thus these Men please themselves more with the Dryness and Gravity of Antiquity, than with a beautiful Imagination, and the Charms of Eloquence. I believe their Opinion will not have many Followers, nor their Example be much imitated. However, when such an Antiquary as the great Selden appears in the World, the Instruction it will receive from him, more than makes amends for the Labour and Time which others lose in hunting after worthless Manuscripts, forg'd Charters, and monkish Fables. The learned and polite Dr. Bathurst of Oxford, wrote an admirable Poem on the Death of Selden:
So fell the sacred Sibyl, when of Old
Inspir'd with mere than mortal Breast could hold:
The gazing Multitude stood doubtful by,
Whether to call it Death or Extasy:
She silent lies, and now the Nations find
No Oracles, but i' th' Leaves she left behind.
Selden etant sans Contredit le plus docte des Anglois moderns. 'Tis said by a Frenchman and a Papist; but as much as Selden was an Oracle, and a Glory to our Country, Archbishop Laud his Brethren would have thrust his learned Head into a Pillory, if they could have come at him. I don't know whether it was for his History of Tythes or not; but that would have been hard after he had been so fully answer'd by Doctors of both Universities; who, however, were not, Les plus Doctes des Anglois moderns. Judicious Antiquaries ever were, and ever will be in Esteem. Those that meddle with Things solid and useful. None of the Pretenders to this Sort of Knowledge, are more despicable than such as deal in old Terms and Phrases, who generally affect a Contempt for those that are in present Use as weak and effeminate. The Emperor Augustus could not bear these Men, any more than Punster's whom he heartily despis'd. The Spectator, No 470. has with much Pleasantry animadverted on those Criticks in Readings, and has brought in the Cotton Library, Aldus, Scaliger, Scioppius, Salmasius, the elder Stephens, and a Heap of old Manuscripts, to clear up the Difficulties in certain Lyrick Verses, about a Shape, an Eye, Wit, Charms, Corinna and Belvedera.
As scrupulous and as curious as these Antiquaries would be thought to be, one might fill Volumes with Examples of the most notorious Mistakes and Blunders in the Writings of the most learned among them; which are not taken notice of to lessen the Credit they have worthily acquir'd, but to shew the Infirmity of humane Nature, which will always be attended with Errours, and never arrive at Perfection as we have elsewhere observ'd after Horace:
————Non ego Paucis, &c.
But in such Authors, what is good more than atones for what is not so, and 'tis only where a Writer shews a Defect in Will as well as Judgement, that he renders himself blame-worthy, especially in History. Several of these Blunders are collected by Marville in his Melange, &c. 'Tis remark'd of Pliny, that in translating Democritus, he says, the Camelion is like a Crocodile, and altogether as big—The Crocodalos of Democritus is in the Jonick Dialect, a Lizard, which may be about some ten thousand Times less than a Crocodile, and yet a great many Times bigger than a Camelion. Eutychius speaking of Eusebius of Cesarea, sirnamed Pamphilus, calls him Eusebius, Bishop of the City of Phili. Quintus Curtius mistakes Arabia Fælix for Arabia Deserta. He confounds the Euxine with the Caspian Sea, and makes the Rivers Tygris and Euphrates run through Media, which they never enter'd. Mr. Simon, in his critical History, takes Suna and Fratela, two Officers of the Gothick Army, for two German Ladies. The Life of Charlemagne, written by Acciaioli, having been often joyn'd with Plutarch's Lives, was published by Vicellius as written by Plutarch, who liv'd 6 or 700 Years before Charlemagne. Gerard Vossius affirms, that the Society of the Sorbonne was instituted by Robert, Brother of S. Lewis King of France, instead of Robert sirnamed Sorbonne from the Place of his Nativity. Pallavicini in his History of the Council of Trent, says Lansac, the French Ambassador, was Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost, which was not instituted till twenty Years after; but what has particular Relation to us Englishmen is the Charge against Dodwel: Dodowel dans ses Dissertations sur Saint Cyprien prend la Ville d'Olympe pour une Olympiade, takes the City Olympus for an Olympiade, the Name of the Place where, for the Date of the Year when it was done, which is Matter of much Humiliation to all such as believe it impossible for so learned and orthodox a Man to commit so great an Oversight; and plainly proves to us, that those who write of what past 1000 or 2000 Years ago, are as likely to err, as those who write of what past three or fourscore Years ago. Whoever has a Curiosity to see more of the Blunderings, which the most learned are charg'd with, such as the Port Royal, Baronius, Vasquez, Du Cange, Varillas, L'Abbé, &c. may have full Satisfaction in Marville's Melange, p. 208. & seq. taken from a Book written by Boileau's Uncle, entituled, Colloquium Criticum de Sphalmætis viromum in re literaria illustrium. Of what Size would the Book be, if we should examine with the same Exactness, Nalson, Heylin, Wharton, Collier, Dugdale, Brady, the Grand Rebellion, the Histories, &c. And collect and publish the Errours, both of the Will and the Judgement. Nor are these Names by any Means more illustrious, than those we meet with in the Colloquium.