It has been allow’d on all hands, how far our Author was indebted to _Nature_; it is not so well agreed, how much he ow’d to _Languages_ and acquired _Learning_. The Decisions on this Subject were certainly set on Foot by the Hint from _Ben Jonson_, that he had small _Latin_ and less _Greek_: And from this Tradition, as it were, Mr. _Rowe_ has thought fit peremptorily to declare, that, “It is without Controversy, he had no Knowledge of the Writings of the ancient Poets, for that in his Works we find no Traces of any thing which looks like an imitation of the Ancients. For the Delicacy of his Taste (_continues He_) and the natural Bent of his own great Genius (equal, if not superior, to some of the Best of theirs), would certainly have led him to read and study them with so much Pleasure, that some of their fine Images would naturally have insinuated themselves into, and been mix’d with his own Writings: and so his not copying at least something from them, may be an Argument of his never having read them.” I shall leave it to the Determination of my Learned Readers, from the numerous Passages, which I have occasionally quoted in my Notes, in which our Poet seems closely to have imitated the Classics, whether Mr. _Rowe_’s Assertion be so absolutely to be depended on. The Result of the Controversy must certainly, either way, terminate to our Author’s Honour: how happily he could imitate them, if that Point be allowed; or how gloriously he could think like them, without owing any thing to Imitation.