was not quiet," they would put forth a book against him every month as long as he lived."

Bentley, who was now only in the 38th year of his age, was left to enjoy the triumph of his great learning and sagacity, to which even the most averse were compelled to pay homage: and what was a still more important result of his book, he had silenced, and put so shame, the slanderous attacks made upon his character. Upon the various matters of this celebrated controversy, his victory was complete and final, and he was left in undisputed possession of the field. A declaration was indeed made by his adversaries of their intention to publish a complete reply to his book; but this was all an empty vaunt; they felt their inability to renew the conflict upon questions of learning, and it was the course of prudence, not to recal public attention to the dispute. It may be remarked that not one of the Boylean confederacy ever again appeared before the world as a critic. Atterbury, their leader, immediately found business of a different character.

We now enter upon difficult ground. Hitherto we have contemplated Bentley as a scholar, disputing with would-be-scholars, in a field, where his scholarship gained a dear, a difficult, and a glorious victory. In the Phalaris controversy he was a knight, clad in impenetrable mail, condescending to defeat a conspiracy of fencing-masters at their favourite 'tierce and carte,' and then crushing them, all and several, by the blows of his invincible mace. Standing on the vantage ground of truth, he despised their pitiful cries of "foul play," and demonstrated himself as stainless in honour, as he was redoubtable in prowess. It is really mortifying to see the armed champion sinking into a petty litigant, and to find him contending, not for the unstained virginity of antique learning, but for miserable quibbles of college etiquette, and yet meaner matters connected with "the three denominations" of pounds, shillings, and pence.

Posterity, (who and what is it?) have been constituted a court from which there is no appeal. Before this imaginary tribunal every great man is called to account for his deeds committed in the flesh. His biographer is presumed to be at once advocate and judge, while in fact he should be no more than witness. DR. MONK, the only authentic biographer of Bentley, is doubtless an admirable witness, but as an advocate, he lays himself open to the charge alleged against a certain great jurist, in the case of poor Peltier, of sacrificing his client to his own reputation for impartiality; and as a judge, he takes especial care not to prejudice the jury in favour of the panel. He has elaborately stated all that Bentley did to offend the college, and as little about what the college did to offend Bentley. He has given the original

Latin, (and what Latin!!) of the statutes which Bentley was accused of violating; but he has not impressed, by any pains taking of his own, the good and sufficient reasons for which Bentley disregarded the letter of the law, in order to vitalize its spirit.

People at this time of day will not care much whether the statutable onus of a few hundreds lay upon the master of Trinity college, or upon the fellows. Be it recollected, that we are not speaking of sums drawn from the people; but of an estate, entrusted to certain hands for certain purposes. Bentley conceived that the trustees were diverting too large a portion of this estate to their personal uses; that the fellows of trinity had a strong inclination to turn the college funds into a snug sinecure. To correct this growing evil he resorted to his magisterial prerogative. He found himself at the head of a royal foundation, and took upon him the authority of a king, perhaps unconstitutionally, but still for the benefit of the whole, of a permanent body, as contradistinguished from individual interests.

The foundation of Trinity college, Cambridge, is said to have been "the first-fruit of the Reformation." HENRY VIII, about a month before his death, appropriated to the establishment of that college a part of the revenues of the spoliated monasteries. the spoliated monasteries. "The price of a dog, and the hire of a harlot," say the Rabbins, "shall not be put to any holy purpose," and even the Jewish priests, who murdered the Lord of life, refused to put the price of blood into their treasury. But the price of much blood, the hire of much spiritual prostitution, constituted the original treasury of that corporation, whose name now being utterly disconnected with all religious associations, and giving rise to innumerable irreverend puns, might very fitly be changed. Its first days were dark and turbid, no wonder, yet it received a body of statutes from EDWARD VI. that blossom of royalty, whose beautiful youth, and timely death, preserved the house of Tudor from utter execration, who, happily for himself, if not for England, was called away before his mother's milk was well out of his veins, and before any of his father's venom was ripened. Queen Elizabeth, who united the best and worst of both sexes, her grandfather's craft and frugality, her father's courage and cruelty, and her poor mother's vanity, gave another set of statutes, and from the apparent discrepancy of these codes, much of the long enigma of Bentley's litigations was compounded. The college flourished mightily. At one time, the two archbishops and seven bishops were its alumni. It could boast of COKE and BACON, of BARROW and NEWTON. Nor ever, till this time, has it lacked pupils who glory in its name, and in whose names it well may glory.

Contrary to the constitution of most colleges, Trinity is obliged to

accept a master at the appointment of the crown. WILLIAM III. during the life of his queen, devolved all literary and religious patronage upon her, who was regarded, even by the conforming clergy, as the true sovereign, while her consort was considered as little more than commander-in-chief. Even the royal library was called the Queen's library. After Mary's death, William, displaying herein the rare knowledge of his own ignorance, committed to six prelates the responsible task of recommending fit persons for all vacant bishoprics, deaneries, and other ecclesiastical preferments, as well as headships and professorships in the royal patronage. It was a wise act, and had it been followed in spirit by his successors, the church had never been, as now, a loose card in the hands of state gamblers. The original members of this commission were TENISON, Archbishop of Canterbury; SHARP, of York; LLOYD, Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry; BURNET, of Saram; STILLINGFLEET, of Worcester, and PATRICK, of Ely. On the death of Stillingfleet, in 1699, MOORE, Bishop of Norwich, was advanced to his place; and Dr. MONTAGUE being promoted to the deanery of Durham, Bentley was recommendod by them to the vacant headship of Trinity college, Cambridge.

The result of Bentley's appointment proves the inexpediency of giving an office to a man, simply because he deserves it, without considering whether it is fit for him, or he fit for it. It has been said, of CHARLES I. that had he been an absolute king, he would have been the best of absolute kings. So of Bentley, we may assert, that he was the fittest of all men to be the Autocrat of a college, for of all men he best understood, and best loved, the ends for which colleges were founded. Being put over a venal, turbulent aristocracy, he pursued his end, regardless of the means, and hence only derived the credit of profiting as adroitly by the ambiguities and corruptions of law, as he had done, and continued to do, by the subtleties of verbal criticism. Tradition says, that being congratulated upon a promotion so little to have been expected, by a member of St. John's, he replied in the words of the Psalmist, "by the help of my God, I have leaped over the wall." Another anecdote, preserved in Dr. Bentley's family, relates that Bishop Stillingfleet said, "we must send Bentley to rule the turbulent fellows of Trinity College; if any body can do it, he is the person; for I am sure he has ruled my family ever since he entered it.”

On the first of February, 1700, Bentley was installed Master of Trinity College,-looked upon by Europe as her first scholar, and by England as the tutor of her future sovereign. But the hand of Providence was heavy on the house of Stuart. William, Duke of Gloucester, died July 29, 1700, and so prevented Bentley from sharing

the honours of FENELON, as the preceptor of a possible good king, or the disgrace of SENECA, as the instructor of an actual Nero.

His first step on entering into the office was of a very inauspicious description. A dividend from the surplus money had been fixed in December 1699, to be paid agreeably to the custom of the college, to the Masters and Fellows for the year ending at Michaelmas. The Master's share, amounting to £170, was clearly due to Dr. Montague, whose resignation took place in November, but by some accident it had not been disbursed to him. Bentley immediately upon his admission, claimed this sum, as being profits accruing during the vacancy, and therefore payable to the new master, and by terrifying the treasurer, who declined paying it, with a threat of bringing him before the Archbishop of Canterbury, he actually obtained the money.*

It so happened, that, at Bentley's accession, the Master's lodge, at Trinity, was very much in want of repair. He, who was a member of the same club with SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN, and whose spirit was a sojourner in Athens, must needs have had magnificent ideas of architecture; and if he had very inadequate calculations of the expense attending the realization of such ideas, the errors of his arithmetic ought not to impugn the integrity of his principles. Yet the expensiveness of these improvements,—the long bills he ran up with masons, carpenters, glaziers, &c., and the violent means whereby he enforced payment at the college expense, were the chief ostensible pretexts of the quarrel between Bentley and his college! Its real causes however we believe to have lain much deeper.

In the first year of his mastership, Bentley became Vice Chancellor, being chosen agreeably to the custom of the University, as a senior in degree among the Heads of houses, who had not already

* With all our admiration of Bentley, we are constrained to admit that, in money matters, he displayed neither the indifference of a scholar, the liberality of a gentleman, nor the exactness of an honest man. Very possibly, he had suffered in his youth from inattention to these things; and there are never wanting prudent friends to persuade a man that, because he is a genius, or learned, all the world are in a conspiracy to rob him. No man was ever long honest, who habitually distrusted the honesty of others; for who will labour to attain or preserve a virtue which he does not believe to exist? Money squabbles, however, are a most unfortunate commencement of any connection between individuals or societies. The civil list is a wet blanket on a young king's popularity; and a contested point in the marriage articles, though quite forgotten in the ardour of the honey moon, often proves a rankling thorn in the side of matrimonial felicity. C.

+ Glaziers. This respectable trade is not rashly called in question. The insertion of sash windows in the lodge, was one of the grounds upon which Bentley was prosecuted. C.

served in that office. Owing, probably, to his inexperience in University business, very few matters of importance were transacted during the year of Bentley's vice chancellorship. One of its duties seems to consist in giving of dinners, which, owing perhaps to the unfinished state of his lodge, he did not fulfil to general satisfaction. Yet, considering that he was then engaged in the important business of winning and marrying a wife, he might fairly have been exempted from the charge of inhospitality. He had long cherished an attachment to MRS. JOANNA BERNARD, a lady who had been a visitor in Bishop Stillingfleet's family. She was daughter of Sir John Bernard, in Huntingdonshire. Being now raised to a station of dignity and competence, he succeeded in obtaining the object of his affections, and was united to her at Windsor, having previously obtained a royal dispensation, under the Great Seal, for deviating from Queen Elizabeth's statutes, which enjoined celibacy to the master as well as to the fellows of Trinity College. This marriage appears to have been eminently happy. The lady, who continued the partaker of his joys and sorrows for nearly forty years, is described as possessing the most amiable and valuable qualities. She had a cultivated mind, and was sincerely benevolent and religious. WHISTON relates, that Bentley was in danger of losing her during his courtship, from insinuating doubts of the authority of the book of Daniel; a story exceedingly improbable, which, if it ever had any foundation, has been distorted from the truth, according to the practice of that hearsay narrator. The alliance with Mrs. Bentley, whose family connections were numerous and distinguished, was the means of securing him powerful protection at critical periods of his life; while the excellence of her disposition tended to soften the animosity of his opponents. We find her mentioned with applause and sympathy, in publications written for the purpose of injuring the character and fortune of her husband.

In the course of Bentley's year of office, he had an opportunity of displaying his spirit and decision, in upholding the rights of the

The truth may be, that Bentley stated that such doubt might have existed,-an admission quite enough to alarm a lady's orthodoxy; for a good simple hearted woman cannot conceive the possibility of any one denying what to her is "stuff of the conscience." Bentley might be disposed to take up the question as a point of criticism rather than as a point of faith, but he was not the man to commit himself, his love, and his preferment, for any heresy, new or old. Such heterodox Quixotism he left to Whiston, who forfeited brilliant prospects in the Church, to scruples which he deemed conscientious, though the orthodox believers account them damnable, and the no-believers ridicule them as insane. He was an honest wrong-headed Arian, far too credulous of tales that told ill for his opponents, but, I believe, incapable of intentional falsehood. C.