Dr. _Felton_ declares we began to refine our Language much sooner than the _French_, and that the Writers in Queen _Elizabeth_'s Reign are far preferable to _Shakespear_, _Fletcher_, _Waller_, _Suckling_, _May_, _Sands_, and all the Writers from the _Gunpowder_ Plot to the Restoration. He will not be advis'd by the best Critick in Poetry, as he represents him. Mr. _Dryden_, who speaking of _Beaumont_ and _Fletcher_, writes thus; _I am apt to believe the_ English _Language in them arrived to its Perfection_: They wrote between the Beginning of King _James_ I and the Reign of King _Charles_ II, a Period in which Dr. _Felton_ makes the _English_ Language to have declin'd; though, if I were permitted to give Judgement, I should continue the Improvement of our Tongue till the Time of the _Spectator_, and the Translation of _Homer_, where, I think, it is in the greatest Purity and Elegance, and that one of the first deplorable Signs of its Declension was even the Discourse upon the _Classicks_. _Dryden_ himself continues the good Taste till the Opening of the Long Parliament 1640, when, if you'l believe him, the Muses were struck dead at a Blow, abandon'd to a barbarous Race of Men, Enemies of all good Learning, such as _Selden_, _Whitlock_, _Bathurst_, _Wilkins_, and the immortal _Milton_. This Passage should have been transplanted into the two famous Histories of those Times, publish'd since King _William_'s Death, particularly that of the _Grand Rebellion_, which Dr. _Felton_ protests is the most impartial one that ever was written; but it is very well it does not stand in need of his Certificate, for there would have been great Exception taken against his Authority. As good a Word as the Doctor gives Mr. _Dryden_ as a _Critick_, _Dryden_ out-does him in his own Panegyrick. _Let_ Dryden _with new Rules our Stage refine, And his great Models form by this Design._ This Piece of Modesty in Verse is excelled by another in Prose; _Our present Poets,_ himself the Top of them, _have far surpast all the antient and modern Writers of other Countries._