Thus he has only made a small mistake, of the means conducing to the end for the end itself, and of the superstructure for the foundation:  But he proceeds: 

“To shew therefore upon what ill grounds they dictate laws for Dramatic Poesy,” &c.  He is here pleased to charge me with being magisterial, as he has done in many other places of his preface; therefore, in vindication of myself, I must crave leave to say, that my whole discourse was sceptical, according to that way of reasoning which was used by Socrates, Plato, and all the academics of old, which Tully and the best of the ancients followed, and which is imitated by the modest inquisitions of the Royal Society.  That it is so, not only the name will shew, which is, An Essay, but the frame and composition of the work.  You see it is a dialogue sustained by persons of several opinions, all of them left doubtful, to be determined by the readers in general; and more particularly deferred to the accurate judgment of my Lord Buckhurst, to whom I made a dedication of my book.  These are my words in my epistle, speaking of the persons whom I introduced in my dialogue:  “’Tis true they differed in their opinions, as ’tis probable they would:  neither do I take upon me to reconcile, but to relate them, leaving your lordship to decide it in favour of that part which you shall judge most reasonable.”  And after that, in my advertisement to the reader, I said this:  “The drift of the ensuing discourse is chiefly to vindicate the honour of our English writers from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the French before them.  This I intimate, lest any should think me so exceeding vain, as to teach others an art, which they understand much better than myself.”  But this is more than necessary to clear my modesty in that point:  and I am very confident, that there is scarce any man who has lost so much time, as to read that trifle, but will be my compurgator, as to that arrogance whereof I am accused.  The truth is, if I had been naturally guilty of so much vanity as to dictate my opinions; yet I do not find that the character of a positive or self-conceited person is of such advantage to any in this age, that I should labour to be publicly admitted of that order.

But I am not now to defend my own cause, when that of all the ancients and moderns is in question.  For this gentleman, who accuses me of arrogance, has taken a course not to be taxed with the other extreme of modesty.  Those propositions, which are laid down in my discourse as helps to the better imitation of nature, are not mine (as I have said), nor were ever pretended so to be, but derived from the authority of Aristotle and Horace, and from the rules and examples of Ben Jonson and Corneille.  These are the men with whom properly he contends, and against “whom he will endeavour to make it evident, that there is no such thing as what they all pretend.”