BOYLE AND BENTLEY.
A Faction of Wits at Oxford the concealed movers of this Controversy—Sir William Temple’s opinions the ostensible cause; Editions of classical Authors by young Students at Oxford the probable one—Boyle’s first attack in the Preface to his “Phalaris”—Bentley, after a silence of three years, betrays his feelings on the literary calumny of Boyle—Boyle replies by the “Examination of Bentley’s Dissertation”—Bentley rejoins by enlarging it—the effects of a contradictory Narrative at a distant time—Bentley’s suspicions of the origin of the “Phalaris,” and “The Examination,” proved by subsequent facts—Bentley’s dignity when stung at the ridicule of Dr. King—applies a classical pun, and nicknames his facetious and caustic Adversary—King invents an extraordinary Index to dissect the character of Bentley—specimens of the Controversy; Boyle’s menace, anathema, and ludicrous humour—Bentley’s sarcastic reply not inferior to that of the Wits.
The splendid controversy between Boyle and Bentley was at times a strife of gladiators, and has been regretted as the opprobrium of our literature; but it should be perpetuated to its honour; for it may be considered, on one side at least, as a noble contest of heroism.
The ostensible cause of the present quarrel was inconsiderable; the concealed motive lies deeper; and the party feelings of the haughty Aristarchus of Cambridge, and a faction of wits at Oxford, under the secret influence of Dean Aldrich, provoked this fierce and glorious contest.
Wit, ridicule, and invective, by cabal and stratagem, obtained a seeming triumph over a single individual, but who, like the Farnesian Hercules, personified the force and resistance of incomparable strength. “The Bees of Christchurch,” as this conspiracy of wits has been called, so musical and so angry, rushed in a dark swarm about him, but only left their fine stings in the flesh they could not wound. He only put out his hand in contempt, never in rage. The Christchurch men, as if doubtful whether wit could prevail against learning, had recourse to the maliciousness of personal satire. They amused an idle public, who could even relish sense and Greek, seasoned as they were with wit and satire, while Boyle was 378 showing how Bentley wanted wit, and Bentley was proving how Boyle wanted learning.
To detect the origin of the controversy, we must find the seed-plot of Bentley’s volume in Sir William Temple’s “Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning,” which he inscribed to his alma mater, the University of Cambridge. Sir William, who had caught the contagion of the prevalent literary controversy of the times, in which the finest geniuses in Europe had entered the lists, imagined that the ancients possessed a greater force of genius, with some peculiar advantages—that the human mind was in a state of decay—and that our knowledge was nothing more than scattered fragments saved out of the general shipwreck. He writes with a premeditated design to dispute the improvements or undervalue the inventions of his own age. Wotton, the friend of Bentley, replied by his curious volume of “Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning.” But Sir William, in his ardour, had thrown out an unguarded opinion, which excited the hostile contempt of Bentley. “The oldest books,” he says, “we have, are still in their kind the best; the two most ancient that I know of, in prose, are ‘Æsop’s Fables’ and ‘Phalaris’s Epistles.’”—The “Epistles,” he insists, exhibit every excellence of “a statesman, a soldier, a wit, and a scholar.” That ancient author, who Bentley afterwards asserted was only “some dreaming pedant, with his elbow on his desk.”
Bentley, bristled over with Greek, perhaps then considered that to notice a vernacular and volatile writer ill assorted with the critic’s Fastus. But about this time Dean Aldrich had set an example to the students of Christchurch of publishing editions of classical authors. Such juvenile editorships served as an easy admission into the fashionable literature of Oxford. Alsop had published the “Æsop;” and Boyle, among other “young gentlemen,” easily obtained the favour of the dean, “to desire him to undertake an edition of the ‘Epistles of Phalaris.’” Such are the modest terms Boyle employs in his reply to Bentley, after he had discovered the unlucky choice he had made of an author.
For this edition of “Phalaris” it was necessary to collate a MS. in the king’s library; and Bentley, about this time, had become the royal librarian. Boyle did not apply directly to Bentley, but circuitously, by his bookseller, with whom the doctor was not on terms. Some act of civility, or a Mercury more “formose,” to use one of his latinisms, was probably 379 expected. The MS. was granted, but the collator was negligent; in six days Bentley reclaimed it, “four hours” had been sufficient for the purpose of collation.