but by that which he imported; even his expensive architecture was, at worst, a magnificent offence, which the public might enjoy without paying for it; and, what was no small prepossession with the many, he had always maintained the port of an innocent man. But, as the cause opened, public opinion took alarm, and the Bishop's own sentiments were altered. So little had Bentley anticipated this-so great was his contempt of his opposers, or his confidence in himself—that, on one hearing, when the Bishop expressed an opinion favourable to his accusers, his nerves were unable to stand the unexpected shock, and he actually fainted away. The trial continued six weeks, and would doubtless have ended in convicting the Master of violating the statutes, and wasting the goods of the college. The Visitor, having consulted

national confidence should be tendered, to embolden their supporters. Bentley managed an address from the University of Cambridge to the Queen, declaring the fullest reliance on the wisdom of her councils, and thanking her for the prospect of a speedy pacification. With that well-weighed caution which appears in all his political conduct, he made the University express their attachment to the Hanoverian succession, terming that house "her Majesty's relations," a phrase not very consonant to Queen Anne's personal predelections, as there can be small doubt that she would willingly have bequeathed her crown to nearer relations; but it neither committed himself nor the Ministry. He had the honour of presenting it to her Majesty with his own hands.

Nothing could be more politic than the whole course of Bentley's politics. He was the supporter of government-not of government by one party, or the otherand never fairly laid himself open to the charge of tergiversation. To be sure, he dedicated his Horace to Harley, and reminds him, that Horace was not the less acceptable to Mecanas, because he had borne arms with Brutus and Cassius:-but who ever looked at a dedication for any thing but neat flattery? His moderation in this respect contrasts strangely, with his imprudent violence as Master of Trinity. Perhaps there was no situation in the world for which he was so unfitted, as the headship of a college. Even his learning was not of that quality which is required in a preceptor, or guide of juvenile studies; for his mind was too rapid to wait upon the slow developement of ordinary comprehensions. He had an exquisite tact, an intuitive perception of the possibilities of language, but he had little feeling for the beauties of thought and imagery, and still less sympathy for the minds of others. He had probably quite forgotten what it was to be a learner, and could not sympathetically discover the cause of a difficulty arising from the intellectual constitution of an individual, though, as in the case of Hemsterhuis, he would infallibly indicate a deficiency of positive knowledge on any given topic. In a word, he could point out what was to be learned, but he could not teach.

How different a being was Aldritch, the very ideal of a college head, who made those who would not have loved learning for its own sake, love it for his, who was better pleased to elicit the talents of others, than to display his own-who made even logic amiable, by proving that it was no foe to good fellowship-who regulated conviviality by making himself its moving principle-planned the Peck-water, loved his pipe, and composed "the bonny Christ-Church bells."

P

his assessors, who are said to have dissented, prepared a sentence of ejectment, which it was not decreed that he should pronounce: for before the day of passing judgment arrived, he was himself called to the last assize, just one day before his sovereign lady-that truest friend of the English Church, who has given name to Queen Anne's Charity; a charity, indeed, which, if there were merit in human works, might partly atone for the unprofitable bloodshed of Marlborough's Victories. Bishop Moore died July 31st; Queen Anne, August 1st, 1714.

That the Bishop had decided against Bentley, is proved by a sentence, or decretum, in anti-ciceronian latin, found among his papers after his death. But Dr. Monk believes that this was only provisional, and not intended to have been put in force, till all milder measures had failed. Moore was a munificent prelate, and deserved a better end than to die of a cold, caught while listening to heart-breaking allegations against one whom he had long esteemed, and never could cease to admire.

As the decease of the Visitor rendered all previous proceedings null and void, the case of Trinity College might either die a natural death, or had to be commenced de novo. Having arrived at the end of the first stage of this protracted contest, let us take a rapid retrospect of Bentley's literary life during the period of these turmoils. It has been noted by his enemies, and lauded by his eulogists, that whenever the tide of accusation was strongest against him, he was sure to come out with some book which turned the public attention from his delinquencies to his abilities, and indisposed the world to believe that so much learning could lack honesty. But it is by no means evident that this coincidence of his classical publications with the climacterical æras of his fortune was the result of design. Strife and trouble seem to have been congenial to his faculties: controversy was a stimulus without which he would have slumbered. He was naturally a bird of tempest.

But as almost all his works were occasional―called forth by the publications of others, we can hardly suppose that all the half-learned of Europe delayed their lucubrations till the precise moment when Bentley was to make a diversion, by holding them up to scorn; or that the evil genius of Le Clerc and Collins were in collusion with the good genius of the Master of Trinity College. Yet the coincidence, which certainly did exist, furnished Arbuthnot with a good hit, in a squib published long after the period we speak of a palpable and professed imitation of Swift's mannerr-which Dr. Johnson would have called "the echo of an unnatural fiction."*

"An Account of the State of Learning in the Empire of Lilliput, together with

The commencement of the Horace has been already mentioned. This seems to have been his professed engagement from August 1702, to

the History and Character of Bullum, the Emperor's Library Keeper." The passage alluded to is as follows:

"Bullum is a tall raw-boned man, I believe near six inches and a half high. From his infancy he applied himself with great industry to the old Blefuscudian language, in which he made such a progress, that he almost forgot his native Lilliputian; and at this time he can neither write nor speak two sentences without a mixture of old Blefuscudian. These qualifications, joined to an undaunted forward spirit, and a few good friends, prevailed with the Emperor's grandfather to make him keeper of his library, and a Mulro in the Gomflastru, though most men thought him fitter to be one of the Royal Guards. These places soon helped him to riches, and upon the strength of them he soon began to despise every body, and to be despised by every body. This engaged him in many quarrels, which he managed in a very odd manner: whenever he thought himself affronted, he immediately flung a great book at his adversary, and, if he could, felled him to the earth; but if his adversary stood his ground, and flung another book at him, which was sometimes done with great violence, then he complained to the Grand Justiciary, that these affronts were designed to the Emperor, and that he was singled out only as being the Emperor's servant. By this trick he got that great officer to his side, which made his enemies cautious, and him insolent.

"Bullum attended the court some years, but could not get into a higher post; for though he constantly wore the heels of his shoes high or low, as the fashion was, yet having a long back and a stiff neck, he never could, with any dexterity, creep under the stick which the Emperor or the chief minister held. As to his dancing on a rope, I shall speak of it presently; but the greatest skill in that art will not procure a man a place at court, without some agility at the stick."

Swift never renewed the attack upon Bentley, after the "Tale of a Tub," and "The Battle of the Books." Perhaps he was ashamed of having, in the Phalaris' Contro. versy, taken the wrong, that is to say, the losing side. Perhaps he abstained cautiously from whatever might connect him with the "Tale of a Tub," under the impression that but for that offspring of youthful imprudence, (which like most of the Disowned, is as like its father as his worst enemies could desire,) he might have been an English Bishop instead of an Irish Dean. Those who love not the church, and, alas! they are too many, and those who amuse themselves with experiments upon human nature, may possibly wish that Gulliver had attained a mitre. It would be curious to see what sort of a Bishop a high-churchman, whose christianity was contempt for Infidels, and whose orthodoxy was hatred of Dissenters, would have made. Yet the Dean had many worse things to answer for, than writing the Tale of a Tub.

What, however, he would not do himself, he found others to do for him. Never was literary band so closely united by harmonious dissimilitude as that which comprized Swift, Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, and Parnell: they were a perfect co-operative society, and might be said, almost without a metaphor, to feel for each other. But Swift thought for them all:-his was the informing mind, and exercised over his associates that supremacy which philosophic power, however perverted, will always maintain over mere genius, though elegant as Pope's-over simple erudition, though extensive as Arbuthnot's. Moreover, whenever a limited number of men form a

December 1711; but in that interval he found several opportunities of displaying his acquirements, either in assisting friends or provoking enemies. He contributed some highly esteemed emendations to Davies's "Tusculan Questions," supported by able notes, and a body of conjectural alterations to Needham's edition of Hierocles on the golden verses of Pythagoras. It is to be wished that Bentley had given a critical opinion upon the date and real author of the Golden Verses themselves. If they could be proved to be of high antiquity, they would form a most valuable document of heathen, we had almost said, patriarchal morality. In 1709, he succeeded in procuring a reprint of the Principia of his illustrious friend, by engaging Cotes, his own protegé, to superintend the publication at the University press. Nearly three hundred letters between Newton and Cotes are preserved in Trinity College. Well may we ask, with Dr. Monk, why are they not given to the world? In this letter-publishing age, when something is really wanting to preserve epistolary composition from the anathema of disgusted common sense, that these treasures should be withheld, is shameful. Sir Isaac was then detained in town by his office as Master of the Mint. It is infinitely to Bentley's honour that he used his influence to promote learning, in branches other than his own; but in Newton's Principia he had a sort of personal interest, as having been the first to employ their discoveries in the popular defence of religion.

In 1710, just after the college quarrel had come to an open rupture, and while disputing the visitorial rights of the Bishop of Ely, he seemingly volunteered a literary rencounter with a universal genius, who had impudently ventured on his peculiar ground. The celebrated John Le Clerc, having written and reviewed himself into a reputation for all sorts of knowledge, except Greek criticism, in an evil hour thought he could " play the lion too," and ventured forth as editor of the Fragments of Menander and Philemon, though his knowledge of Greek is said to have been acquired at a late age, and never to have exceeded the modicum of a "high-school" boy. What could have tempted him to make this display of his insufficiency is hard to guess; as Greek editorship is not the stage for versatile audacity to play on. Cleverness, eloquence, variety of attainment, will do nothing. The defect of scholarship cannot be hid. But in Le Clerc's youth, critical scholarship can scarce be said to have existed, and perhaps, like other great men, he was ignorant of the change of times. That precise determination of the rules and licences of the ancient dramatic measures which has

league or union, it is ten to one that the least amiable will be the most influential. When, therefore, Pope or Arbuthnot attack Bentley, we may suspect that they were little more than Swift's doubles, if they did not actually father what he writ.

guided conjecture to certainty, and enabled the commentator to discern the just outline of an original picture through successive coatings of false colour, was, in the days of Grotius, as little anticipated by the great readers, as a law to regulate the occultations of Jupiter's Satellites was expected by those antique rustics, who assembled with clang of pots and clash of platters to drive away the monster that was smothering the eclipsed moon. Whatever is known on this subject, is owing to Bentley, for he first pointed to what was wanted, and shewed how it was to be obtained.

When Hemsterhuis exposed his lack of metrical experience, Bentley was content to make him sensible of his deficiency, by encouraging him to supply it, and even this kind severity was inflicted in the privacy of a post letter. When Barnes, by an edition of Homer, in which he had embarked his little all, proved that his Greek was more in bulk than value, Bentley through a private communication to a common friend, let the veteran understand that he could have demolished him, and then dismissed him as loathe to spoil his fortune. "There is room enough in the world for thee and me."

To Le Clerc he was not equally merciful, and several anecdotes have been circulated to account for his severity to the Swiss Literateur. Perhaps he thought that a reviewer wants the condition of obtaining mercy. With his usual extemporaneous rapidity, of which he never forgot to boast, he struck off his Emendations in Menandri et Philemonis reliquias ex nupera editione Johannis Clerici, under the name of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, a work of high reputation, in the sending forth of which he affected a mystery for which it is difficult to assign a reason. The MSS was committed with a charge of secrecy to Burman, the bitterest enemy that Le Clerc's review had made, and printed in Holland. But the purpose of concealment if it really existed, was defeated by the indiscretion of Dr. Hare, then chaplain general to the army in the Netherlands, to whom the conveyance of the pacquet was intrusted. While the sheets were yet in the press, the report that Burman was about to launch the thunderbolts of Bentley against the editor of the Fragments reached the ears of Le Clerc himself; who forthwith despatched a menacing epistle to the English Aristarch, calling upon him to disown, by the next post, the authorship of the forthcoming attack, and denouncing his personal hostility if the work were avowed or an answer refused. Bentley without either owning or denying the performance, responded in a cool caustic epistle, exhibiting that perfect self-possession which naturally attended him when he was in the right, and did not always forsake him when he was in the wrong. With the most provoking civility, he exposed the ignorance of his antagonist