Having put my _Roman_ emperor to silence, I look’d about me, and saw a pack of grammarians (for so I guessed them to be by their impertinence and noise) disputing it very fiercely at the next table; the matter in debate was, which was the most heroical age; and one of them, who valu’d himself very much upon his reading, maintain’d, that the heroical age, properly so call’d, began with the _Theban_, and ended with the _Trojan_ war, in which compass of time, that glorious constellation of heroes, _Hercules_, _Jason_, _Theseus_, _Tidæus_, with _Agamemnon_, _Ajax_, _Achilles_, _Hector_, _Troilus_, and _Diomedes_ flourished: men that had all signaliz’d themselves by their personal gallantry, and valour. His next neighbour argued very fiercely for the age wherein _Alexander_ founded the _Grecian_ monarchy, and saw so many noble generals and commanders about him. The third was as obstreperous for that of _Julius Cæsar_, and manag’d his argument with so much heat, that I expected every minute when these puppies wou’d have gone to loggerheads in good earnest. To put an end to your controversy, gentlemen, says I to them, you may talk till your lungs are founder’d, but this I positively assert, that the present age we live in is the most heroical age, and that my master, _Lewis le Grand_ is the greatest hero of it. Hark you me, Sir, how do you make that appear, cry’d the whole pack of them, opening upon me all at once: by your leave, gentlemen, answer’d I, two to one is odds at foot-ball; but having a hero’s cause to defend, I find myself possess’d with a hero’s vigour and resolution, and don’t doubt but I shall bring you over to my party. That age therefore is the most heroical which is the boldest and bravest; the antients, I grant you, whor’d and got drunk, and cut throats as well as we do; but, gentlemen, they did not sin upon the same foot as we, nor had so many wicked discouragements to deter them; we whore when we know ’tis ten to one but we get a clap for our pains; whereas our fore-fathers, before the siege of _Naples_, had no such blessing to apprehend; we drink and murther one another in cold blood, at the same time we believe that we must be rewarded with damnation; but your old hero’s had no notion at all, or at least an imperfect one of a future state: so ’tis a plain case, you see, that the heroism lies on our side. To apply this then to my royal master; he has fill’d all Christendom with blood and confusion; he has broke thro’ the most solemn treaties sworn at the altar; he has stray’d and undone infinite numbers of poor wretches; and all this for his own glory and ambition, when he’s assured that hell gapes every moment for him: now tell me, whether your _Jasons_, your _Agamemnons_, or _Alexanders_, durst have ventur’d so heroically; or whether your pitiful emperors of _Germany_, your mechanick kings of _England_ and _Sweden_, or your lousy States of _Holland_, have courage enough to write after so illustrous a copy.