motion about the earth to bring a different face before us could not be counteracted but by a coincident revolution on her own axis. Keill was a coarse man, who called a spade a spade, as was afterwards sufficiently shown in his almost brutal treatment of Leibnitz, on behalf of his friend Sir Isaac Newton. And it is possible, undoubtedly, that being a Professor at Oxford, he might have conceived some personal pique to Bentley, while resident in that university. But we really see no reason for ascribing to any ungenerous motive a criticism, which, though peevishly worded, was certainly called for by the conspicuous situation of the error which it exposed.

In this year, Bentley was appointed a Prebendary at Worcester, and, in April, 1694, Keeper of all the King's Libraries. During the same year, he was a second time summoned to preach the Boyle Lecture; and in the following year was made one of the Chaplains in ordinary to the King.

Early in the year 1696, Bentley quitted the townhouse of the Bishop of Worcester, and commenced housekeeping in his own lodgings as Royal Librarian. These lodgings, had he reaped nothing else from his office, were, to him, as a resident in London, a royal preferment. They were in St. James's Palace, adjoining to those of the Princess (afterwards Queen) Anne, and looked into the Park. In this year, Bentley took the degree of Doctor of Divinity; and somewhere about the same time appeared the edition of Callimachus, by his friend Grævius, with contributions from himself, of memorable splendor.

In 1697 commenced, on Bentley's part, that famous controversy about the Epistles of Phalaris, which has

conferred immortality on his name.

The circumstan

ces in which it originated are briefly these: The wellknown dispute in France, upon the intellectual pretensions in a comparison with each other of the Ancients and Moderns, had been transferred to England by Sir William Temple. This writer, just then at the height of his popularity, had declared for the ancients with more elegance than weight of matter; and, by way of fortifying his judgment, had alleged the Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of Esop as proofs that the oldest parts of literature are also the best. Sir William was aware that both works had been challenged as forgeries. However, the suspicions of scholars were as yet unmatured; and, in a matter of taste, which was the present shape of the question, Sir William Temple's opinion seemed entitled to some consideration. Accordingly, the Honorable Charles Boyle, nephew to the illustrious philosopher of that name, who was at this time pursuing his studies at Christ Church in Oxford, and, upon the suggestion of Aldrich, the head of that College, had resolved to undertake an edition of some Greek book, as an academic exercise, was directed to Phalaris in particular, by this recent opinion of a friend, to whom he looked up with filial confidence and veneration. To insure as much perfection to his edition as was easily within his reach, Boyle directed Bennet, his London publisher, to procure a collation of MS. in the King's Library. This brought on an application to Bentley, who had just then received his appointment as Librarian; and his behavior on this occasion, scandalously misrepresented to Mr. Boyle, furnished the first ground of offence to Boyle. How long a calumny

can keep its ground, after the fullest refutation, appears from the Preface to Lennep's Latin version of Bentley's Dissertation, (edit. of 1781,) where, in giving a brief history of the transaction, the writer says,

Bentleius tergiversari primum; et ægre quod sæpius efflagitatum erat concedere ;' and again, ecce subito Bentleius iter parans Londino, maxima ope contendere a Benneto ut codex ille statim redderetur.' All this is false. Let us here anticipate the facts as they came out on both sides some years after. Bentley, by the plainest statements, has made it evident that he gave every facility for using the MS.; that he reclaimed it only when his own necessary absence from London made it impossible to do otherwise; that this necessity was foreseen and notified at the time of lending it; and that, even on the last day of the term prefixed for the use of the MS., sufficient time for dispatching the business twice over 15 was good-naturedly granted by Bentley, after his first summons had been made in vain.

These facts are established. That he lent the MS. under no sort of necessity to do so, nay, at some risk to himself, is admitted by Bennet; that he reclaimed it, under the highest necessity to do so, is not denied by any body. At what point of the transaction is it, then, that the parties differ? Simply as to the delay in lending, and on the matter of giving notice, that on such a day it would be resumed. A little procrastination in lending, and forgetting to give notice, would not have justified a public stigma, had either one or the other been truly imputed to Bentley. But both imputations he solemnly denied. It is painful that the stress of any case should rest upon a simple comparison

of veracity between two men ; yet as Mr. Bennet has made this inevitable, let us state the grounds of comparison between himself and Dr. Bentley. In external respectability there was, in the first place, a much greater interval between 16 them than the same stations would imply at this day. Dr. Bentley, in the next place, was never publicly convicted of a falsehood; whereas Bennet was, in this case at any rate, guilty of one. Thirdly, whilst the Doctor had no interest at stake which required the protection of a falsehood, (since, without a falsehood, he was clear of the discourtesy charged upon him,) Bennet had the strongest: he had originally brought forward a particular statement, in a private letter, as a cloak for his own and his collator's indolence, without any expectation that it would lead to public consequences; but now, what bo had begun in policy, he clung to from dire necessity; since, unless he could succeed in fastening some charge of this nature upon Dr. Bentley, his own excuse was made void; his word of honor was forfeited; and, from the precipitate attack on Bentley, into which he had misled his patron, all color of propriety vanished

at once.

However, Bennet's private account was, as yet, uncontradicted; and, on the faith of that, Boyle acquainted the public, in the Preface to his edition of Phalaris, that, up to the 40th Letter, he had taken care to have the book collated with the King's MS.; but that, beyond that the librarian had denied him the use of it, agreeably to his peculiar spirit of courtesy. Upon the very first publication of the Book, Bentley saw it, and immediately wrote to Mr. Boyle, explaining the matter in a polite and satisfactory manner. Boyic

replied in gentlemanly terms, but did not give him that substantial redress, which Bentley had reason to expect, of cancelling the leaf which contained the affront. No further steps were taken on either side for some time; nor does it certainly appear that any would have been taken, but for an accidental interference of a third party. This was Wotton, Bentley's college friend. His book on Ancient and Modern Learning, originally published in 1694, and called out by Sir William Temple's Essay on the same subject, was now (1697) going into a second edition; and as a natural means of increasing its interest, he claimed of Bentley an old promise to write a paper exposing the spurious pretensions of Phalaris and Esop. This promise had been made before the appearance of Mr. Boyle's book, and evidently had a reference to Sir William Temple's strange judgment upon those authors. But, as matters had altered since then, Bentley endeavored to evade a task which would oblige him to take a severe notice of Mr. Boyle's incivility and injustice. Wotton, however, held him to his engagement, and Bentley (perhaps reluctantly) consented. Here again the foreign editor of Lennep is too rash: he says of Bentley, that cupide occasionem amplexus est.' But we are not to suppose that the sincerity with which a man declines a fierce dispute, is always in an inverse ratio to the energy with which he may afterwards pursue it. Many a man shrinks with all his heart from a quarrel, for the very reason that he feels too sensibly how surely it will rouse him to a painful activity, if he should once embark in it, and an irritation fatal to his peace. In the following year, Boyle, Dr the Christ-Church faction who used his name, re

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