least, Bentley was matriculated at St. John's College, Cambridge. Of his studies at college nothing further is recorded than that he applied himself even thus early to the res metrica; and amongst his familiar companions, the only one mentioned of any distinction is the prodigious William Wotton. Of this monster in the annals of premature erudition, we remember to have seen several accounts; amongst others, a pretty good one in Birch's Life of Tillotson. But Dr. Monk mentions some facts which are there overlooked: for instance, that at six years of age he read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, together with some Arabic and Syriac. In his tenth year he entered at Catherine Hall, in Cambridge, on which occasion he was matriculated by the head of that College as Gulielmus Wotton infra decem annos nec Hammondo nec Grotio secundus. As this could be true only with a limited reference to languages, the entry seems boyish and precipitate. At thirteen, being then master of twelve languages, and his proficiency in several of these attested by undoubted judges, he took his degree of B. A., an honor for which there was no precedent. It is evident, however, from Wotton's case, that attainments of this kind are found generally, (as Butler says of Hebrew in particular,) to flourish best in barren ground.' Dr. Monk, indeed, seems to think that Wotton did not afterwards belie the splendor of his promise. We cannot agree with him. Surely his book on Ancient and Modern Learning, the most popular of his works, though necessarily entertaining from its subject, is superficial in a degree scarcely to be explained in one of so much reading, and commanding so much powerful assistance. Another of his works, a History of the

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Roman Empire, written expressly for the Duke of Gloucester, then heir apparent, has no conspicuous merit of any kind, either of popular elegance on the one hand, or of learned research on the other. In fact, Wotton's position in the world of letters was most unfortunate. With accomplishments that were worth little except for show, he had no stage on which to exhibit them; and, sighing for display, he found himself confounded in the general estimate with the obscure drudges of the age. How much more useful, and finally how much more brilliant, to have possessed his friend Bentley's exquisite skill in one or two languages, than a shallow mediocrity in a score!

Bentley took his first degree with distinction, his place in the arrangement of honors corresponding with that of third wrangler in the present system. Having now closed his education, he was left to speculate on the best way of applying it to his advancement in life. From a fellowship in his own college, the most obvious resource of a young scholar, he was unfortunately excluded by a by-law, not rescinded until the reign of George IV. At length, after two years' interval, spent (as Dr. Monk supposes) at Cambridge, he was appointed by his college to the head mastership of the Spalding Grammar School. This situation, after holding it about a year, he quitted for the very enviable one of domestic tutor to the son of Stillingfleet, then Dean of St. Paul's. For this also he was indebted to the influence of his college: and perhaps no sort of preferment could have been more favorable to Bentley's views. Stillingfleet was a truly good man; a most extensive and philosophic scholar; a gentleman, and acquainted with courts; and with a liberal allowance

for the claims of a tutor, having himself officiated in that character. Another great advantage of the place was the fine library belonging to the Dean, which, excepting the celebrated ones of Moore, Bishop of Ely, and of Isaac Vossius, was perhaps the best private collection in the kingdom. It was besides a library of that particular composition which suited Bentley's pursuits; and in the Dean's conversation he had the very best directions for using it to advantage. Meantime, with this ample provision for intellectual wants, worldly ones were not likely to be overlooked. How possible it was at that day for a private tutor to reap nothing from the very highest connections, was seen in the case of Dr. Colbatch, one of Bentley's future enemies. This man had held that situation successively in the families of Bishop Burnet, and of the proud Duke of Somerset; and yet neither from the political Bishop, though all-powerful with Queen Mary, nor from the proud Duke, though Chancellor of his university, could he obtain any preferment. But Stillingfleet loved real merit; and, fortunately for Bentley, in the next reign, being raised to the mitre, possessed the ear of royalty beyond any ecclesiastical person of his own time.

It was in this fortunate situation that Bentley acquired that biblical learning which afterwards entitled him to the Divinity Professorship, and which warranted his proposals for a revised text of the New Testament, even after that of his friend Mill. About six years being spent in this good man's family, most delightfully no doubt to himself, — and then chiefly laying the foundations, broad and deep, of his stupendous learning, Bentley removed with his pupil early in

1689 to Oxford. Wadham College was the one selected; and both pupil and tutor became members of it. Stillingfleet was now raised to the see of Worcester; and from his extensive connections, Bentley had the most useful introductions in every quarter. In particular, he had the privilege of disporting himself, like Leviathan, in the ocean of the Bodleian library : and it is certainly not going too far to say, that no man ever entered those sacred galleries so well qualified to make a general use of their riches. Of his classical accomplishments it were needless to speak. Mathematics, it is thought, by Dr. Monk, that he studied at Cambridge; and it is certain, that in Dean Stillingfleet's family, he had, by a most laborious process of study, made himself an eminent master of the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac.

Dealing much in cattle, a man's talk is of oxen; and living in this El Dorado of books, it was natural that a man should think of writing one. Golden schemes floated in Bentley's mind; for he was a golden scholar, and these were the golden hours of his early manhood. Amongst other works, he projected at this period an entire edition of the Fragments of the Greek Poets, and also a Corpus of the Greek Lexicographers, (Hesychius, Suidas, Pollux, &c.) To the irreparable loss of Grecian literature, neither scheme was accomplished. Already in his Epist. ad Mill. he speaks of the first as abandoned. Sed hæc fuerunt,' is the emphatic expression. It was in the fates that Bentley's maiden performance as an author should be in other and more obscure society. Amongst the manuscript riches of the Bodleian there was a copy· the one soles copy in this world of a certain old Chronicler,

about whose very name there has been a considerable amount of learned dust kicked up. Properly speaking, he ought to be called Joannes Malelas Antiochenus: but, if you are not particular about your Greek, you may call him Malěla, without an s. This old gentleman, a fellow of infinite dulness, wrote a Chronicle beginning with Adam, and coming down to the 35th year of Justinian. And here lies the necessity of calling him either Malela or Malelas; for, strange to say, as there were two Alexander Cunninghams, who at this very time were going about the world mere echoes or mocking-birds of each other, so there were two Johns, both of Antioch, both Chroniclers, both asses, (no distinction there,) and both choosing to start from Adam. The publication of this Chronicle had been twice meditated before, but interrupted by accidents. At length, in 1690, it was resumed under the superintendence of Mill, who claimed from Bentley a promise he had made to throw together any notes which might occur to him upon the proof-sheets, as they came reeking from the press. These notes took the shape of an Epistola ad Millium: and thus the worthy old jackass of Antioch had the honor of coming forth to the world with the notes of Chilmead, (one of the two early projectors of an edition,) Prolegomena by Hody, a learned chaplain of Bishop Stillingfleet's, and this very masterly collection of disquisitions by Bentley upon topics either closely connected with the work, or remotely suggested by it.

Here, by the way, we have a crow to pluck with Dr. Monk. How he came to make such a mistake wo know not; primâ facie, one would suppose he had not read the work. But this is impossible, for he states very