served to guide him in his private thoughts, when he was to make a judgment of what others writ. That he conceived a Play ought to be A JUST AND LIVELY IMAGE OF HUMAN NATURE, REPRESENTING ITS PASSIONS AND HUMOURS; AND THE CHANGES OF FORTUNE, TO WHICH IT IS SUBJECT: FOR THE DELIGHT AND INSTRUCTION OF MANKIND. This Definition, though CRITES raised a logical objection against it (that "it was only _a genere et fine_," and so not altogether perfect), was yet well received by the rest. And, after they had given order to the watermen to turn their barge, and row softly, that they might take the cool of the evening in their return: CRITES, being desired by the company to begin, spoke on behalf of the Ancients, in this manner. "If confidence presage a victory; EUGENIUS, in his own opinion, has already triumphed over the Ancients. Nothing seems more easy to him, than to overcome those whom it is our greatest praise to have imitated well: for we do not only build upon their foundation, but by their models. "Dramatic Poesy had time enough, reckoning from THESPIS who first invented it, to ARISTOPHANES; to be born, to grow up, and to flourish in maturity. "_It has been observed of Arts and Sciences, that in one and the same century, they have arrived to a great perfection_ [p. 520]. And, no wonder! since every Age has a kind of Universal Genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies. The work then being pushed on by many hands, must, of necessity, go forward. "Is it not evident, in these last hundred years, when the study of Philosophy has been the business of all the _Virtuosi_ in Christendom, that almost a new Nature has been revealed to us? that more errors of the School have been detected, more useful experiments in Philosophy have been made, more noble secrets in Optics, Medicine, Anatomy, Astronomy, discovered; than, in all those credulous and doting Ages, from ARISTOTLE to us [p. 520]? So true it is, that nothing spreads more fast than Science, when rightly and generally cultivated. "Add to this, _the more than common Emulation that was, in those times, of writing well_: which, though it be found in all Ages and all persons that pretend to the same reputation: yet _Poesy, being then in more esteem than now it is, had greater honours decreed to the Professors of it, and consequently the rivalship was more high between them_. They had Judges ordained to decide their merit, and prizes to reward it: and historians have been diligent to record of AESCHYLUS, EURIPIDES, SOPHOCLES, LYCOPHRON, and the rest of them, both who they were that vanquished in these Wars of the Theatre, and how often they were crowned: while the Asian Kings and Grecian Commonwealths scarce[ly] afforded them a nobler subject than the unmanly luxuries of a debauched Court, or giddy