Wit, Humanity, and Manners; which they might easily become by retrenching that too great Liberty. Neither have the Poets only, but the Criticks too Endeavour’d to compleat us; Mr. _Dennis_ and Mr. _Rimer_ have by their Ingenious, and judicious labours taught us to admire the Beauties as we ought, and to know the faults of the former. Nor are we less beholding to these for forming our Judgments, than to those for raising our Fancies. These are the Sources from whence we draw our gayer part of Conversation; I don’t mean in exclusion to the other parts of Poetry, in most of which (as I have heard good Judges say) we equal at least the Ancients, and far surpass all the Moderns. I honour the Names, and admire the Writings of _Denham_, _Suckling_ and _D’avenant_, I am ravish’d with the Fancy of _Cowley_, and the Gallantry of _Waller_. I reverence the _Fairy Queen_, am rais’d, and elevated with _Paradise Lost_, _Prince Arthur_ composes and reduces me to a State of Yawning indifference, and Mr. _W—stl—y_’s _Heroicks_ lull me to Sleep. Thus all Ranks and Degrees of Poets have their use, and may be serviceable to some body or other from the Prince to the Pastry Cook, or Past-board Box-maker. I should mention our Satyrists, but it would be endless to descend to every particular, of these Mr. _Oldham_ is admirable, and to go no further, the inimitable Mr. _Butler_ will be an everlasting Testimony, of the Wit of his Age, and Nation, and bid eternal defiance to the Wits of all Countries, and future Ages to follow him in a Path before untrack’d. Our Prose Writers, that are eminent for a gay Style and Iovial Argument, are so many, that it would swell this Letter too much to name ’em, so that I shall only take notice, that whoever can read without Pleasure, or Laughter, _The contempt of the Clergy_, and the following Letters and Dialogues by the same Author, or the facetious Dialogues of Mr. _Brown_ must be more Splenetick than _Heraclitus_, or more stupid, than the Ass he laugh’d at.