This person then, such as he is, such, at least, as the zealots represent and you esteem him, you have the pleasure to call your FRIEND. Report says, too, that he has more than a common right to this title: that he has won it by many real services done to yourself. How doth the consciousness of all this fire you! and what pains do I see you take to restrain that impatient gratitude, which would relieve itself by breaking forth in the praises of such a friend!
And yet—in spite of all these incitements from esteem, from friendship, and from gratitude, which might prompt you to some extravagance of commendation, such is the command you have of yourself, and so nicely do you understand what belongs to this intercourse of learned friends, that, in the instance before us, you do not, I think, appear to have exceeded the modest proportion even of a temperate and chaste praise.
I assure you, Sir, I am so charmed with the beauty of this conduct, that, though it may give your modesty some pain, I cannot help uniting the several parts of it, and presenting the entire image to you in one piece.
I meddle not with the argument of your elaborate dissertation. It is enough that your readers know it to be the same with that of another famous one in the D. L. They will know, then, that, among the various parts of that work, none was so likely as this to extort your applause. For it is universally, I suppose, agreed that, for a point in classical criticism, there is not the man living who hath a keener relish for it than yourself. And the general opinion is, that your honoured friend hath a sort of talent for this kind of writing. Some persons, I know, have talked at a strange rate. One or two I once met with were for setting him much above the modern, and on a level, at least, with the best of the old, critics. But this was going too far, as may appear to any that hath but attentively read and understood what the judicious Mr. Upton and the learned Mr. Edwards have, in their various books and pamphlets, well and solidly, and with great delight to many discerning persons, written on this subject. Yet still I must needs think him considerably above Minellius and Farnaby, and almost equal to old Servius himself, except that, perhaps, one doth not find in him the singular ingenuity[118] you admire in the last of these critics.
But be this as it will, it seems pretty well agreed, that the learned person, though so great a divine, is a very competent judge, and no mean proficient in classical criticism. There are many specimens of his talents in this way dispersed through the large and miscellaneous work of the D. L. But the greatest effort of his genius, they say, is seen in the explanation of the Sixth Book of the Ænëis. And, with all its defects, I can easily perceive you were so struck with it, that it was with the utmost reluctance you found yourself obliged, by the regard which every honest critic owes to truth, and by the superior delicacy of your purpose, to censure and expose it.
Another man, I can easily imagine, would have said to himself before he had entered on this task, “This fine commentary, which sets the most finished part of the Ænëis, and indeed the whole poem, in so new and so advantageous a light, though not an essential in it, is yet a considerable ornament of a justly admired work. The author, too, is my particular friend; a man, the farthest of all others from any disposition to lessen the reputation of those he loves. The subject hath been well nigh exhausted by him; and the remarks I have to offer on his scheme are not, in truth, of that consequence as to make it a point of duty for me to lay aside the usual regards of friendship on their account: and, though HE hath greatness of mind enough not to resent this liberty, his impatient and ill-judging friends will be likely to take offence at it. The public itself, as little biassed as it seems to be in his favour, may be even scandalized at an attempt of this nature, to which no important interest of religion or learning seem to oblige me.”
After this manner, I say, would a common man have been apt to reason with himself. But you, Sir, understand the rights of literary freedom, and the offices of sacred friendship, at another rate. The one authorize us to deliver our sentiments on any point of literature without reserve. And the other will not suffer you to dishonour the man you love, or require you to sully the purity of your own virtue, by a vicious and vulgar complaisance.
Or, to give the account of the whole matter in your own memorable words:
The Sixth Book of the Ænëis, you observe, though the most finished part of the twelve, is certainly obscure. “Here then is a field open for criticism, and all of us, who attempt to explain and illustrate Virgil, have reason to HOPE that we may make some discoveries, and to FEAR that we may fall into some mistakes; and this should induce us to conjecture with freedom, to propose with diffidence, and to dissent with civility. Ἀγαθὴ δ’ ἔρις ἥδε βροτοῖσι, quoth old Hesiod[119].”
Which shall I most admire, the dignity, the candour, or the prudence, that shine forth in this curious paragraph, which stands as a sort of preface to the refutation, as no doubt you designed it, of your friend’s work? “You have reason to hope that, after the unsuccessful efforts of the author of the D. L., you may make some discoveries.” In this declaration some may esteem you too sanguine. But I see nothing in it but a confidence very becoming a man of your talent at a discovery, and of your importance in the literary world. You add, indeed, as it were to temper this boldness, that “you have reason to fear too that you may fall into some mistakes.” This was rather too modest; only it would serve, at the same time, to intimate to your friend what he had to expect from the following detection of his errors. But you lead us to the consequence of these principles. “They should induce us, you say ”TO CONJECTURE WITH FREEDOM.” Doubtless. And the dignity of your character is seen in taking it. For, shall the authority or friendship of any man stand in the way of my conjectures?