“Of all the modern Dramatick Poets the Author of the Trip to the Jubilee has the least Reason to turn into Ridicule Aristotle and Horace, since ’tis to their Rules which he has, in some measure followed, that he owed the great success of that Play.  Those Rules are no thing but a strict imitation of Nature, which is still the same in all Ages and Nations:  And because the Characters of Wildair, Angelica, Standard and Smuggler are natural, and well pursued, They have justly met with Applause; but then the Characters of Lurewell and Clincher Sen. being out of Nature they have as justly been condemned by all the Good Judges.”

* Some Scholars, tho’ by their constant Conversation with Antiquity, they may know perfectly the sense of the Learned dead, and be perfect masters of the Wisdom, be throughly informed of the State, and nicely skill’d in the Policies of Ages long since past, yet by their retired and unactive Life, and their neglect of Business, they are such strangers to the Domestick Affairs and manners of their own Country and Times, that they appear like the Ghosts of old Romans rais’d by Magick.  Talk to them of the Assyrian or Persian Monarchies of the Grecian or Roman Commonwealths, they answer like Oracles; They are such finished States-men that we should scarce take ’em to have been less than Privy-Councellors to Semiramis, Tutors to Cyrus the Great, and old Cronies of Solon, Licurgus, and Numa Pompilius.  But ingage them in a discourse that concerns the present Times, and their Native Country, and they hardly speak the language of it; Ask them how many Kings there have been in England since the Conquest, or in what Reign the Reformation happened, and they’ll be puzzled with the Question; They know all the minutest Circumstances of Catiline’s Conspiracy, but are hardly acquainted with the late Plot.  They’ll tell you the Names of such Romans as were called to an Account by the Senate for their Briberies, Extortions and Depredations, but know nothing of the four impeached Lords; They talk of the ancient way of Fighting, and warlike Engines, as if they had been Lieutenant Generals under Alexander, Scipio, Annibal or Julius Caesar; but are perfectly ignorant of the modern military Discipline, Fortification and Artillery; and of the very names of Nassau, Conde, Turenne, Luxembourg, Eugene, Villeroy and Catinat.  They are excellent Guides, and can direct you to every Alley, and Turning in old Rome yet lose their way home in their own Parish.  They are mighty Admirers of the Wit and Eloquence of the Ancients; Yet had they lived in the Time of Demosthenes, and Cicero, would have treated them with as much supercilious