ready to grant, than the careless prodigality of inexhaustible wealth made him negligent to resume. We have also purposely excluded from our list the fugitive pamphlets of business, or of personal defence, by which Bentley met his ungenerous assailants; a part of his works which, as a good man, though with human infirmities, he would doubtless wish to be now cancelled or forgotten, under that comprehensive act of Christian forgiveness which there can be no doubt, that, in his latter days, he extended even to those unjust enmities which provoked them. Confining ourselves to his purely literary works, and considering the great care and attention which belong almost to each separate sentence in works of that class, we may perhaps say that, virtually, no man has written so much.

By way of bringing his characteristic merits within the horizon of the least learned readers, we shall now lay before them a close analysis of his ablest and most famous performance, the Phalaris; and it happens, favorably for our purpose, though singularly, that the most learned of Bentley's works is also that which is best fitted for popular admiration.

Phalaris had happened to say, that some worthy people in Sicily had been kind enough to promise him a loan; not, however, on any pastoral considerations, such as might seem agreeable to that age and country, but on the bare Judæan terms of so much per shent (daveiosiv). Here the forger of the Letters felt that it was indispensable to assign real names. Bills upon Simonides, indorsed by Pythagoras, would have been likely to fall to a discount in critical estimation,

and to have damaged the credit of the letters. The contractors for his loan, therefore, are not humble individuals, but cities Phintia, to wit, and Hybla. Well, and what of them? Were their acceptances likely to be protested for non-payment? By no means; both were probably solvent; and, at all events, their existence, which is something, is guaranteed by Ptolemy, by Antoninus, and by Pliny. But,' says Bentley, (oh that ominous but !) it is ill luck for this forger of letters, that a fragment of Diodorus was preserved, to be a witness against him.' From this little fragment, now raised up from the dust of ages, Bentley deduces a summary conviction of the forgery. This city of Phintia, in fact, had its name from the author of its existence, one Phintias; he was a petty prince, who flourished about the time of Pyrrhus the Epirot, and built the city in question, during the one hundred and twenty-fifth Olympiad ; 38 that is to say, abiding by the chronology most favorable to the authenticity of the Letters, above 270 years after Phalaris. A pretty slip,' says Bentley' a pretty slip this of our Sophist, to introduce his tyrant borrowing money of a city almost three hundred years before it was named or built!'

Such is the starting argument of Bentley. It will be admitted to be a knock-down blow; and though only one, and applied to a single letter of the whole series, a candid looker-on will own, that it is such a one as settles the business; and no prudent champion, however game, would have chosen to offer himself to the scratch for a second round. However, οἱ περὶ τον Βοιλέα thought otherwise.

The next argument is of the same description, be

ing a second case of anachronism; but it merits a separate statement. In the instance of Phintia the proof was direct, and liable to no demur; but here the anachronism is made out circumstantially. Hence it is less readily apprehended; and the Boyle party, in their anger or their haste, did in fact misapprehend it; and upon their own blunder they built a charge against Bentley of vicious reasoning, which gave him an opening (not likely to be missed by him) for inflicting two courses of the knout instead of one. The case is this: Stesichorus, the lyric poet, had incurred the displeasure of Phalaris, not for writing verses against him, but for overt acts of war; the poet had been levying money and troops, and, in fact, making hostile demonstrations at two separate places — Aluntium and Alasa. Accordingly, Letter 92 takes him to task, and insinuates an ugly consequence: viz. the chance of being snapt' (so Bentley calls it) by the bull before he got safe home to Himera. The objection raised upon this passage regards Alæsa: Did that town exist so early as the days of Phalaris? No, says Bentley, nor for a hundred and forty years after Phalaris - having been founded by Archonides in the second year of the 94th Olympiad, consequently one hundred and forty years after the death of Phalaris; and then, upon a testimony which cannot be resisted by a Boyle man, viz. the testimony of these very Letters, one hundred and fifty-two at the very least, after this particular letter. But might there not be other cities, earlier than this, which bore the same name? There might — in fact there were. How, then, shall it be known whether that particular Alæsa, which

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would involve the anachronism, viz. the Alæsa found.

ed by Archonides, is the Alæsa of the Letter-writer? As the argument by which Bentley replies to this question has been so much misconceived, and is in fact not very clearly stated in either dissertation, we shall throw it into a formal syllogism.

Major Proposition. The Alæsa of the PseudoPhalaris and Stesichorus is the maritime Alæsa.

Minor Proposition. The maritime Alæsa is the Alæsa founded by Archonides.

Ergo. The Alæsa of Archonides (viz. an Alæsa of nearly two centuries later than the era of Phalaris) is the Alæsa of the Pseudo-Phalaris.

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Now comes a famous argument, in which Bentley makes play beautifully. Phalaris had been ill, and, wishing to reward his Greek physician in a manner suitable to a prince, amongst other presents he sends the doctor ποτηρίων θηρικλείον ζεύγη δέκα, i. e. ten couple or pair, of Thericlean cups. What manner of things were these? They were,' says Bentley, large drinking-cups, of a peculiar shape, so called from the first contriver of them, one Thericles, a Corinthian potter.' Originally, therefore, as to the material, they must have been porcelain or, however, earthen-ware of some quality or other, (Pliny having by general consent tripped in supposing Thericles a turner.) But, as often happens, in process of time, they were called Thericlean from their shape, whatsoever artisan made them, or whether of earth, or of wood, or of metal.' So far well. But there is another thing,' says Bent ley, 'besides a pretty invention, very useful to a liar and that is, a good memory.' For the next thing to be inquired is the age of this Thericles; and we

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learn that from Athenæus one 40 witness indeed, but as good as a multitude in a matter of this nature. This cup (says he) was invented by Thericles, the Corinthian potter, who was contemporary with Aristophanes the comedian.'

This is enough. Bentley goes on on to compute, that all the surviving plays of Aristophanes range within a period of thirty-six years; so that, allowing the full benefit of this latitude to the Pseudo-Phalaris, viz. that Thericles invented his cups in the very first year of this period, still, even upon that concession, the very earliest baking of the potter's china will be one hundred and twenty years after the final baking of Phalaris himself.

This article in the first Dissertation was short; but the Oxford critique upon it furnished him with an occasion, and almost a necessity, for supporting it, in the second, with a bravura display of his learning upon all the collateral points that had been connected with the main question. And, as the attack had been in unusual terms of insolence, (asking him, for instance, how he 'durst' oppose such men as Grotius and Scaliger, 41) Bentley was under no particular obligation to use his opportunities with forbearance, or to renounce his triumph. This was complete. It is not Boyle, or his half-learned associates, but the very heroes of classical literature for the preceding one hundred and fifty years - Buchanan, Scaliger, Grotius, Casaubon, Salmasius, who on this occasion (respectfully, but, as to the matter, effectually) are shown to be in error. Most readers are aware, that amongst the multifarious researches which belong to what is called learning, the res metrica has been developed more