I am surprised Bentley did not turn the point of his antagonist’s sword on himself, for this flourish was a most unguarded one. But Bentley could not then know so much of the book, “made up by contributions,” as ourselves.
Partial truths flew about in rumours at the time; but the friends of a young nobleman, and even his fellow-workmen, seemed concerned that his glory should not be diminished by a ruinous division. Rymer, in his “Essay concerning Curious and Critical Learning,” judiciously surmised its true origin. “I fancy this book was written (as most public compositions in that college are) by a select club. Every one seems to have thrown in a repartee or so in his turn; and the most ingenious Dr. Aldrich (he does not deserve the epithet in its most friendly sense) no doubt at their head, smoked and punned plentifully on this occasion.” The arrogance of Aldrich exceeded even that of Bentley. Rymer tells further, that Aldrich was notorious for thus employing his “young inexperienced students;” that he “betrayed Mr. Boyle into the controversy, and is still involving others in the quarrel.” Thus he points at the rival chieftains; one of whom never appeared in public, but was the great mover behind the curtain. These lively wits, so deeply busied among the obscurest writers of antiquity, so much against their will, making up a show of learning against the formidable array of Bentley, exhilarated themselves in their dusty labours by a perpetual stimulus of keen humour, playful wit, and angry invective. No doubt they were often enraged at bearing the yoke about their luxuriant manes, ploughing the darkest and heaviest soil of antiquity. They had been reared—
|
“Insultare solo, et gressus glomerare superbos.” “Georg.” Lib. iii. 117. |
|
“To insult the ground, and proudly pace the plain.” Trapp. |
Swift, in “The Battle of the Books,” who, under his patron, Sir William Temple, was naturally in alliance with “the Bees,” with ingenious ambiguity alludes to the glorious manufacture. “Boyle, clad in a suit of armour, which had been given him by all the Gods.” Still the truth was only floating in rumours and surmises; and the little that Boyle had done was not yet known. Lord Orrery, his son, had a difficulty to overcome to pass lightly over this allusion. The literary honour of the family was at stake, and his filial piety was exemplary to a father, who had unfortunately, in passion, deprived his lordship of the family library—a stroke from which his sensibility never recovered, and which his enemies ungenerously pointed against him. Lord Orrery, with all the tenderness of a son, and the caution of a politician, observes on “the armour given by the Gods”—“I shall not dispute about the gift of the armour. The Gods never bestowed celestial armour except upon heroes, whose courage and superior strength distinguished them from the rest of mankind.” Most ingeniously he would seem to convert into a classical fable what was designed as a plain matter of fact!
It does credit to the discernment of Bentley, whose taste was not very lively in English composition, that he pronounced Boyle was not the author of the “Examination,” from the variety of styles in it.—p. 107.
This short and pointed satire of Horace is merely a pleasant story about a low wretch of the name of King; and Brutus, under whose command he was, is entreated to get rid of him, from his hereditary hatred to all kings. I suppose this pun must be considered legitimate, otherwise Horace was an indifferent punster.
A keen repartee! Yet King could read this mighty volume as “a vain confused performance,” but the learned Dodwell declared to “the Bees of Christchurch,” who looked up to him, that “he had never learned so much from any book of the size in his life.” King was as unjust to Bentley, as Bentley to King. Men of genius are more subject to “unnatural civil war” than even the blockheads whom Pope sarcastically reproaches with it. The great critic’s own notion of his volume seems equally modest and just. “To undervalue this dispute about ‘Phalaris,’ because it does not suit one’s own studies, is to quarrel with a circle because it is not a square. If the question be not of vulgar use, it was writ therefore for a few; for even the greatest performances, upon the most important subjects, are no entertainment at all to the many of the world.”—p. 107.