Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And 'twere a fin to rob them of their mite. ment. NOTES. 160 Each ous treatment of Addison's Cato, and Pope's Effay on Man; but we must admit, that many of his obfervations were well-founded, and that they evince confiderable claffical knowledge, as well as fhrewdnefs. Let us alfo remember what is due to disappoint Dennis came into the world with ardent hopes as a man of literature, and with refpectable connections. He found all his expectations croffed, though he was confcious of his acquirements; and after long and ineffectual struggles towards attaining what he confidered his deserved rank of literary eminence, he funk at laft, poor and unfriended, into old age. Pope's fatire in this place, refpecting his being in debt, is certainly unfeeling. Pope was in poffeffion of affluence and honour, and it was not till his old antagonist was laid helplefs at his feet, that his refentment abated; it was then that he wrote the Prologue for his benefit. How noble does the character of Addison appear, who, though equally attacked by Dennis as a Critic, yet never mentioned his name with afperity, and refufed to give the leaft countenance to the pamphlet which Pope had written upon the occafion of Dennis's ftrictures on Cato? VER. 163. Yet ne'er one Sprig] Swift imbibed from Sir W. Temple, and Pope from Swift, an inveterate and unreasonable averfion and contempt for Bentley, whofe admirable Boyle's Lectures, Remarks on Collins's Emendations of Menander and Callimachus, and Tully's Tufcal. Difp. whose edition of Horace, and, above all, Differtations on the Epiftles of Phalaris, (in which he gained the most complete victory over a whole army of wits,) all of them exhibit the most striking marks of accurate and extensive erudition, and a vigorous and acute understanding. He degraded himself much by his ftrange and abfurd hypothefis of the faults which Milton's amanuenfis introduced into that poem. But I have been informed that there was fill an additional caufe for Pope's Each wight who reads not, and but fcans and fpells, Each Word-catcher that lives on fyllables, 166 Ev'n NOTES. Pope's refentment: That Atterbury, being in company with Bentley and Pope, infifted upon knowing the Doctor's opinion of the English Homer; and that, being earnestly preffed to declare his fentiments freely, he said, "The verses are good verses, but the work is not Homer, it is Spondanus." It may, however, be cbferved, in favour of Pope, that Dr. Clarke, whofe critical exactness is well known, has not been able to point out above three or four mistakes in the fenfe throughout the whole Iliad. The real faults of that tranflation are of another kind: They are fuch as remind us of Nero's gilding a brazen ftatue of Alexander the Great, caft by Lyfippus Pope, in a letter which Dr. Rutherforth fhewed me at Cambridge in the year 1771, written to a Mr. Bridges at Fulham, mentions his confulting Chapman and Hobbes, and talks of their authority, joined to the knowledge of my own imperfectnefs in the language, over-ruled me." Thefe are the very words which I tranfcribed at the time. WARTON. VER. 163. thefe ribalds,] How defervedly this title is given. to the genius of PHILOLOGY, may be seen by a short account of the manners of the modern Scholiafts. When in these latter ages, human learning raised its head in the Weft; and its tail, verbal criticism, was, of course, to rife with it; the madness of Critics foon became so offenfive, that the grave ftupidity of the Monks might appear the more tolerable evil. J. Ar. gyropylus, a mercenary Greek, who came to teach school in Italy, after the facking of Conftantinople by the Turks, used to maintain that Cicero understood neither Philofophy nor Greek: while another of his countrymen, J. Lafcaris by name, threatened to demonftrate that Virgil was no Poet. Countenanced by fuch great examples, a French Critic afterwards undertook to prove that Ariftotle did not understand Greek, nor Titus Livius, Latin. It has been fince difcovered that Jofephus was ignorant of Hebrew; and Erafmus fo pitiful a linguift, that, Burman affures us, were he now alive, he would not deferve to be put at the head of a countryschool: And even fince it has been found out that Pope had no invention, and is only a Poet by courtefy. For though time has stripp'd 3 Ev'n fuch fmall Critics fome regard may claim, NOTES. Pretty! ftripp'd the prefent race of Pedants of all the real accomplishments of their predeceffors, it has conveyed down this spirit to them, unimpaired; it being found much easier to ape their manners, than to imitate their science. However, thofe earlier RIBALDS raised an appetite for the Greek language in the Weft; infomuch, that Hermolaus Barbarus, a paffionate admirer of it, and a noted Critic, ufed to boat, that he had invoked and raised the Devil, and puzzled him into the bargain, about the meaning of the Ariftotelian ENTEAEXEIA. Another, whom Balzac fpeaks of, was as eminent for his Revelations; and was wont to say, that the meaning of fuch or fuch a verfe in Perfius, no one knew but God and himfelf. While the celebrated Pomponius Lætus, in excess of veneration for Antiquity, became a real Pagan; raised altars to Romulus, and facrificed to the Gods of Latium; in which he was followed by our countryman Baxter, in every thing, but in the costlinefs of his facrifices. But if the Greeks cried down Cicero, the Italian Critics knew how to fupport his credit. Every one has heard of the childish exceffes into which the ambition of being thought CICERONIANS carried the most celebrated Italians of this time. They abstained from reading the Scriptures for fear of spoiling their ftyle: Cardinal Bembo used to call the Epiftles of St. Paul by the contemptuous name of Epiftolaccias, great overgrown Epiftles. But ERASMUS cured their frenzy by that mafter-piece of good fenfe, his Ciceronianus. For which (in the way that Lunatics treat their Phyficians) the elder Scaliger infulted him with all the brutal fury peculiar to his family and profeffion. His fons Jofeph and Salmafius had indeed fuch endowments of nature and art, as might have raifed modern learning to a rivalfhip with the ancient. Yet how did they and their adversaries tear and worry one another? The choiceft of Jofeph's flowers of fpeech were Stercus Diaboli, and Lutum Stercore maceratum. It is true, these were lavished upon his enemies: for his friends he had other things in ftore. In a letter to Thuanus, fpeaking of two of them, Clavius and Lipfius, he calls the firft a monfler of ignorance; and Pretty! in amber to obferve the forms Of hairs, or ftraws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! NOTES. 169 The and the other, a slave to the Jefuits, and an Idiot. But fo great was his love of facred amity at the fame time, that he says, I ftill keep up my correfpondence with him, notwithstanding his Idiotry, for it is my principle to be conftant in my friendships—Je ne reste de luy efcrire, nonobftant fon Idioterie, d'autant que je fuis conftant en amitié. The character he gives of his own Chronology, in the fame letter, is no lefs extraordinary: Vous vous pouvez effurer que nôtre Eufebe fera un tréfor des marveilles de la doctrine Chronologique. But this modeft account of his own work, is nothing in comparison of the idea the Father gives his bookfeller of his own perfon. This bookfeller was preparing fomething of Julius Scaliger's for the Prefs; and defired the Author would give him directions concerning his picture, which was to be fet before the book. Julius's answer (as it ftands in his collection of letters) is, that if the engraver could collect together the feveral graces of Mafiniffa, Xenophon, and Plato, he might then be enabled to give the public fome faint and imperfect refemblance of his Perfon. Nor was Salmafius's judgment of his own parts less favourable to himself; as Mr. Colomies tells the story. This Critic, on a time, meeting two of his brethren, Meffrs. Gaulman and Mauffac, in the Royal Library at Paris, Gaulman, in a virtuous confcioufnefs of their importance, told the other two, that he believed they three could make head against all the Learned in Europe. To which the great Salmafius fiercely replied, "Do you and M. Mauffac join yourselves to all that are learned in the world, and you fhall find that I alone am a match for you all." Voffius tells us, that when Laur. Valla had fnarled at every name of the first order in antiquity, fuch as Arißotle, Cicero, and one whom I should have thought this Critic the likelieft to reve rence, the redoubtable PRISCIAN, he impiously boasted that he had arms even against Christ himself. But Codrus Urceus went further, and actually used thofe arms which the other only threat. ened with. This man, while he was preparing fome trifling piece of Criticism for the prefs, had the misfortune to hear his papers were deftroyed by fire: On which he is reported to have broke out" Quodnam ego tantum fcelus concepi, O Chrifte! quem ego The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there. NOTES. Were ego tuorum unquam læfi, ut ita inexpiabili in me odio debaccheris ? Audi ea quæ tibi mentis compos, et ex animo dicam. Si forte, cum ad ultimum vitæ finem pervenèro, fupplex accedam ad te oratum, neve audias, neve inter tuos accipias oro; cum Infernis Diis in æternum vitam agere decrevi." Whereupon, fays my author, he quited the converfe of men, threw himself into the thickest of a foreft, and wore out the wretched remainder of his life in all the agonies of defpair. WARBURTON. VER. 164. Лalbing Bentley] This great man, with all his faults, deferved however to be put into better company. The following words of Cicero defcribe him not amifs: "Habuit à natura genus quoddam acuminis, quod etiam arte limaverat, quod erat in reprehendendis verbis verfutum et folers: fed fæpe ftomachofum, nonnunquam frigidum, interdum etiam facetum." WARBURTON. I fhall add to this note "part of an unpublished letter from my learned and excellent friend Mr. James Harris of Salisbury, addreffed to Mr. John Upton, the editor of Spenfer, and author of Obfervations on Shakespear. "When I think of Bentley, I can't help comparing him to Virgil's Fame; "Ingrediturque folo, et caput inter nubila condit :" An immenfe monfter, poffeffed of a thousand eyes and a thousand ears, to fee, and hear, and know every thing; but, at the same time, "Tam ficti pravique tenax, quam nuncia veri.” The conscioufnefs of his own great parts and accomplishments furnished him with a pride, that, as it made him condemn the senti. ments of most others, fo it made him deify his own errors." WARTON. VER. 164. flashing Bentley] The following Epigram by Pope, on Bentley's edition of Milton, to which the epithet " flashing” alludes, I have found in his hand-writing: "Did Milton's profe, O Charles! thy death defend? A furious Foe unconfcions proves a Friend, On |