Laudator Temporis Acti

M.L. Clarke, Greek Studies in England, 1700-1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945), p. 51, quoting Jeremiah Markland (1693-1776):

'What profit is it', he asked, 'if an education in letters instead of making us, as it professes to, gentle, upright, simple, frank, modest and kindly towards all men, renders us fierce, virulent, cunning, arrogant, malignant and implacable towards all who presume to differ from us even in trifles?'<sup>1

1</sup> Supplices, Dedication.

Here is the passage in which the quotation occurs, from Markland's dedication of his edition of Euripides' Suppliants to Tiberius Hemsterhuis and Peter Wesseling:

Quo enim eruditionis nomen, si barbarorum animos retineamus? Quo simulationem rei optimae, si absit veritas? Quid prodest, si pro mitibus, probis, simplicibus, ingenuis, modestis, benevolis erga omnes homines, quales promittit Literata Institutio; ea nos dimittat feroces, maledicos, versutos, insolentes, malignos, implacabiles omnibus qui a nobis dissentire ausi fuerint, etiam in nugis? Mallem sane literas alphabeti nescire, quam hujusmodi esse literatum, etiam si ista conditio daretur, ut vos rerum cognitione exaequarem. Hanc enim morum pravitatem nulla doctrina pensare potest, non si omnem noverimus scientiam, et linguis Hominum et Angelorum loquamur. Enimvero res absurda est Eruditio sine Bonis Moribus; in quibus, cum primas partes teneant Modestia et Humanitas, si quis homo natus, his neglectis, in ista sibi placet, паe ille, quicunque sit, praepostere et stulte elegit, et τετύφωται, μηδὲν ἐπιστάμενος.

Markland quotes from 1 Corinthians 13:1-2 and 1 Timothy 6:4.