also procured a collation, as far as Letter xl., of a manuscript in the Royal Library; the Librarian, with that courtesy which distinguishes him [pro singulari sua humanitate], refused me the further use of it.' The insolent bad taste of this reference to an eminent scholar was remarkable even in so young a man. Three weeks after the book had been printed Bentley happened to see a presentation copy. The bulk of the edition had not then been issued. It would still have been possible, then, to cancel the offensive statement. Bentley wrote that very evening to Boyle, explaining that the statement was incorrect, and giving the true facts. Boyle sent an evasive reply, and left the false statement in his preface unaltered. Some of Bentley's friends urged him to refute the slander publicly, but he remained silent. 'Out of a natural aversion to all quarrels and broils, and out of regard to the editor himself, I resolved to take no notice of it, but to let the matter drop.'
About two years later (1697) Bentley's old friend, William Wotton, brought out a second edition of his 'Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning,' in which he had taken the part of the moderns against Temple. In fulfilment of a promise made to Wotton before Boyle's book had appeared, Bentley contributed an essay to this second edition. He pointed out that the 'Letters of Phalaris,' vaunted by Temple as the productions of a prince who lived about 600 B.C., were the clumsy forgeries of a Greek rhetorician of the christian era. While speaking of 'Phalaris,' he replied, as he was thoroughly justified in doing, to Boyle's calumny. He then proceeded to review Boyle's edition. This was really to break a fly on the wheel. Boyle had added to the Greek text only a short life of Phalaris, a Latin version evidently based on that of Naogeorgus (1558), and a few pages of miserably meagre and feeble notes. In criticising the book Bentley spoke of 'our editors,' as if, though Boyle's name alone stood on the title-page, it had been a joint production. This was the 'publick affront' which, as Boyle alleged, moved him to reply, The book popularly known as 'Boyle against Bentley' appeared in January 1698, under the title, 'Dr. Bentley's Dissertations on the Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of Æsop, examin'd by the Honourable Charles Boyle, Esq.' To produce this skit several of Boyle's ablest Oxford friends had clubbed their resources. Francis Atterbury (then thirty-six) had, as he himself says, given half a year to it; and at least five other persons appear to have helped. The vulgarity of the insults which the Christ Church wits heap on the royal librarian makes the work a curiosity of literature. Twice over, for example, it is intimated that Bentley might have been bribed to prolong the time for which the manuscript had been lent to Boyle. Bentley's 'dogmatical air,' 'his ingenuity in transcribing and plundering notes and prefaces of Mr. Boyle,' 'his modesty and decency in contradicting great men,' are among the topics of this elegant composition. It is no excuse for Bentley, the Christ Church gentlemen declare, that 'he was born in some village remote from town, and bred among the peasantry while young;' for he had enjoyed an opportunity of acquiring some tincture of their own good breeding by having been 'tutor to a young gentleman.' The authors are anxious to guard against the suspicion that they had wasted much time on 'so trifling a subject' as scholarship; but to most readers this anxiety must appear superfluous. Then, as now, there was a wealthy 'world' to which the poor flippancy of this attack could seem intelligent and witty, since the intelligence and the wit were of their own level. Garth has pilloried himself for ever by the couplet in which he celebrated Boyle's supposed triumph:
So diamonds take a lustre from their foil,
And to a Bentley 'tis we owe a Boyle.
Temple's pompous voice was instantly uplifted in homage to 'the pleasant wit and the easiness of style' which his aristocratic young friend had crushed the plebeian pedant. On the whole, if Bentley had been a weak man, he would have had a bad time of it. Most of his fine acquaintances gave him the cold shoulder. He was a highly sensitive man, but he was also brave and strong. One day he happened to meet a friend who told him that he must not allow himself to lose heart. 'Indeed,' Bentley said, 'I am in no pain about the matter; for it is a maxim with me that no man was ever written out of reputation but by himself.' Bentley's reply to Boyle, an expansion of the essay in Wotton'a book, was written in something over seven months, during which the author had other and urgent duties. It appeared in March 1699, about fourteen months after Boyle's attack. The immortal 'Dissertation on the Letters of Phalaris' is not merely the most crushing blow that was ever dealt to insolent and aggressive sciolism. It rises high above the temporary arena in which Boyle's allies had displayed their incapacity, and takes rank as a permanent masterpiece of literature. To this character it has a threefold claim. It is the earliest model of a new criticism, which, by a scien-
