And I could almost have said, with regard to the ancients, what Cicero, very absurdly and unbecomingly for a philosopher, says with regard to Plato, Cum quo errare malim quam cum aliis recte sentire.  Whereas now, without any extraordinary effort of genius, I have discovered that nature was the same three thousand years ago as it is at present; that men were but men then as well as now; that modes and customs vary often, but that human nature is always the same.  And I can no more suppose, that men were better, braver, or wiser, fifteen hundred or three thousand years ago, than I can suppose that the animals or vegetables were better then than they are now.  I dare assert too, in defiance of the favourers of the ancients, that Homer’s hero Achilles was both a brute and a scoundrel, and consequently an improper character for the hero of an epic poem; he had so little regard for his country, that he would not act in defence of it, because he had quarrelled with Agamemnon about a—­; and then afterwards, animated by private resentment only, he went about killing people basely, I will call it, because he knew himself invulnerable; and yet, invulnerable as he was, he wore the strongest armour in the world; which I humbly apprehend to be a blunder; for a horseshoe clapped to his vulnerable heel would have been sufficient.  On the other hand, with submission to the favourers of the moderns, I assert with Mr. Dryden, that the Devil is in truth the hero of Milton’s poem:  his plan, which he lays, pursues, and at last executes, being the subject of the poem.  From all which considerations I impartially conclude that the ancients had their excellencies and their defects, their virtues and their vices, just like the moderns:  pedantry and affectation of learning clearly decide in favour of the former; vanity and ignorance, as peremptorily, in favour of the latter.  Religious prejudices kept pace with my classical ones; and there was a time when I thought it impossible for the honestest man in the world to be saved, out of the pale of the Church of England:  not considering that matters of opinion do not depend upon the will; and that it is as natural, and as allowable, that another man should differ in opinion from me, as that I should differ from him; and that, if we are both sincere, we are both blameless, and should consequently have mutual indulgences for each other.

The next prejudices I adopted were those of the beau monde, in which, as I was determined to shine, I took what are commonly called the genteel vices to be necessary.  I had heard them reckoned so, and without further inquiry, I believed it; or at least should have been ashamed to have denied it, for fear of exposing myself to the ridicule of those whom I considered as the models of fine gentlemen.  But now I am neither ashamed nor afraid to assert, that those genteel vices, as they are falsely called, are only so many blemishes in the character of even a man of the world, and what is called a fine gentleman, and degrade him in the opinion of those very people, to whom he hopes to recommend himself by them.  Nay, this prejudice often extends so far, that I have known people pretend to vices they had not, instead of carefully concealing those they had.