Corderius americanus. An essay upon the good education of children. And what may hopefully…

Perfection in this Life, is to be Despaired of, must not be pretended to.

I am not insensible, that the Critics find Gross Faults even in those Classic Authors, to whom, if our Exercises be not conformed, our Masters will mark what we do. Tully himself himself will be hardly allowed by Va•la and Erasmus, to have written True Latin, in his; Diutius Commora•s Athenis erat Animus ad te Scribere: And, Quum in animo haber•m navigandi. Yea, in his own Time, his Friend Atticus charged him with False Latin, and he was put upon pleading the Authority of T•ren•• in his own Defence. Linacre, one of our Greatest Critics ⟨image ?⟩for the Latin Tongue, never could endure the Ciceronian Style; Ciceronis dictionem, nunquam probare potuit, nec si•e Fastidi• audire. These Critical Folks, Employ their Satyrs, [And, by the way, this very word may be also criticised upon; for it should be writ, Saetir, or, Satur, and originally signified nothing but, A well-filed Writing:] upon Ovid. They say they find him for ever stumbling at the Threshold, and blundering in his first Verse. To mention only our Two School-books. The one begins, Parve, nec invideo; Which they say is not Good Sense; for it should have been, Parve sed invideo. The other begins, In Nova •ert animus mutatas dicere forma•, Corpora, which, except you'll help it off, with calling it a Figure, they say is very Nonsense. I am sensible that Ingenious Men do take his part, against these Hypercritical Objectors. Nor would I make my self a Party to Objections that seem to have no better Foundations. I only show how ready some Folks are at Fishing for Carps. And indeed, Though his Metamorphosis has fewer Faults, than the rest of his Works, yet it is not without them; Among which, I must my self confess, his confounding the Suns Diurnal and Annual Motion, in Phaeton's business, is hardly Excusable. Nor can Virgil himself altogether escape the Lash; even Virgil, of whom 'tis mentioned by Macroi as his Praerogative, ut nullus Laudibus crescat, nullius vituneratione minuatur. The Learned not only tax the Modesty, of his Hero, who when he comes to Speech-making, begins with Smpius Aeneas, but find many odd mistakes in him: and now and then such Forgetfulness; as, Al terram Hesperiam venies, and anon, certi quo […] erunt. But if the Aendomasti of the Envious Carbilius, or Hrnnius's Collections of the Faults in Virgil, were in our hands, we should say, Who can stand before Envy?