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But besides this philosophic sense, there's an allusion to prophetic rapture; for Virgil, in some poem now lost, had said of an inspired prophetess, plena deo, full of the god k an expression so much commended then, that it grew to be a word of fashion. Ovid borrowed it in his tragedy Medea;

Feror huc illuc, ut plena deo.

But Gallio, Lucan's great uncle, had it always in his mouth, even to a solecism, Et ille est plena deo, when he commended any orator for his spirit and fire. In both these senses our Cato here was deo plenus; in the former as Stoicus sapiens, in the latter as going to pour forth dignas adytis voces, words worthy of inspiration. But then the epithet tacita mente comes pat and seasonable; he bore the god in his silent and sedate mind; whereas the prophets, when possessed by the god, were ranting and raving under a temporary distraction;

non vultus, non color unus,

Non comte mansere coma: sed pectus anhelum,

Et rabie fera corda tument.*

In the whole, I think there cannot be two finer lines, more full of serene majesty, than these of Lucan.

But our translator, while he labours to swell the thought, or at least to swell his verse, inserts such improper, such foreign stuff into it, that he subverts the whole sentence;

The hero thus his secret mind express'd,

And inborn truths reveal'd.

Why secret mind? when all he says in the following answer are the common dogmata, the maxims of the sect. What inborn truths? when all he delivers were taught him by his preceptors, and had been handed down for two centuries, ever since Zeno. And see how the syntax is distorted; tacita mente, secret mind, thrown into the latter verse, to the confusion of all grammar: which has revealed to us another secret, the true size of the translator's learning.

k Seneca Suas. iii.

[* Virg. Æn. vi. 47.-D.]

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Quid quæri, Labiene, jubes? an liber in armis
Occubuisse velim potius, quam regna videre?
An sit vita nihil, sed longam differat ætas ?

Where would thy fond, thy vain inquiry go?
What mystic fate, what secret wouldst thou know?
Is it a doubt, if death should be my doom,
Rather than live till kings and bondage come,
Rather than see a tyrant crown'd in Rome?
Or wouldst thou know, if, what we value here,
Life, be a trifle hardly worth our care?
What by old age and length of days we gain,
More than to lengthen out the sense of pain?

We come at last to Cato's answer, which, if you'll take our writer's word for it, denominates him a free-thinker. It is time for us then to look sharp, to observe every period; the battle advances and grows hot; nunc specimen specitur, nunc certamen cernitur.* And I'll renounce my name PHILELEUTHERUS, if the success of the day does not so frustrate his hopes, that he'll hate both Cato and Lucan for't, as long as he lives.

[* Plaut. Cas. iii. 1. 2.—D.]

ADVERTISEMENT.

LEST the reader should perhaps wonder why this Third Part, after so long an interval, is published thus imperfect, it is thought proper to inform him, that Dr. BENTLEY began it many years ago, at the desire of her late Majesty when princess, had actually printed two half-sheets of it, and intended to have finished the whole. But a dispute then unhappily arising about his fees as professor,* in which he thought himself extremely ill used, he threw the book by with indignation; nor could he, after having excused himself to her royal highness, be ever prevailed upon to resume it again. These two half-sheets, however, still remaining with the printer, the publisher of the last edition, in 1737, got leave of Dr. BENTLEY to reprint them at the end; which is the reason why that edition breaks off so abruptly, master† being the catch-word to the next intended half-sheet. It was imagined by some, that the remaining part of the copy would be found after Dr. BENTLEY'S death; but he having often told me that he wrote it only sheet by sheet, just as they could print it off, I had, I must own, no great expectations. I examined his papers, however, very carefully, and found at length a few pages more, which are now first added

[* i. e. Regius Professor of Divinity: for the particulars of this dispute, which took place in 1717, see Monk's Life of B. vol. ii. p. 37 sqq.

To the request contained in the following University grace, voted 1715, Bentley had turned a deaf ear: "Whereas the Reverend Dr. Bentley, Master of Trinity College, besides his other labours published from our press, to the great advancement of learning and honour of this University, has lately, under the borrowed name of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, done eminent service to the Christian religion and the clergy of England, by refuting the objections and exposing the ignorance of an impious set of writers that call themselves Freethinkers-May it please you that the said Dr. Bentley, for his good services already done, have the public thanks of the University; and be desired by Mr. Vice-Chancellor, in the name of the whole body, to finish what remains of so useful a work." Monk's Life of B. vol. i. p. 373.-D.]

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in this edition. And as the manuscript ends, agreeably to his former declarations, in the middle of a page, I think I may venture to assure the public, that this is the whole of it that Dr. BENTLEY ever wrote.

R. B.*

Mar. 25, 1743.

[* i. e. Richard Bentley, the nephew and sole executor of the author.—D.]

DR. BENTLEY'S

PROPOSALS

FOR PRINTING A NEW EDITION OF THE

GREEK TESTAMENT

AND

ST. HIEROM'S LATIN VERSION.

WITH A

FULL ANSWER TO ALL THE REMARKS OF A LATE PAMPHLETEER.

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