Secondly, Though I acknowledge the full merit of this way of treating a learned friend, I am rather more taken with another, which is that of writing against him. For this demonstrates the esteem one hath of the author’s work, not only as it may seem to imply a little generous rivalry or indeed envy, from which infirmity a truly learned spirit is seldom quite free, but as it shews the answerer thought it worth writing against; which, let me assure you, is no vulgar compliment; as many living writers can testify, who to this hour are sadly lamenting that their ill fortune hath never permitted them to rise to this distinction. Now, in this view of the matter, I must take leave to think that you have done a very substantial honour to the author of the famous Discourse on the VIth book of Virgil, in levelling so long and so elaborate a disputation against him. And HE, of all other men, ought to be of my mind, who to my certain knowledge hath never done thus much for one in a hundred of those learned persons whose principal end in commencing writers against him was to provoke him to this civility.
But then, THIRDLY, this compliment of writing against a great author may be conveyed with that address, that he shall not appear, I mean to any but the more sagacious and discerning, to be written against at all. This curious feat of leger-de-main is performed by glancing at his arguments without so much as naming the person or referring to him. This I account the most delicate and flattering of all the arts of literary address, as it expresseth all the respect, I have taken notice of under the preceding article, heightened with a certain awe and fear of offence, which to a liberal mind, I should think, must be perfectly irresistible. It is with much pleasure I observe many examples of this kind in your truly candid dissertation, where without the least reference, or under the slight cover of—some friends of Virgil say[121]—some commentators have thought[122]—Virgil’s friends suppose[123]—and the like, you have dexterously and happily slid in a censure of some of your friend’s principal reasonings. But, to be impartial, though you manage this matter with admirable grace, the secret is in many hands. And whatever be the cause, hath been more frequently employed in the case of the author of the D. L. than any other. I could mention, at least, a dozen famous writers, who, like the flatterers of Augustus, don’t chuse to look him full in the face, but artfully intimate their reverence of him by indirect glances. If I single out one of these from all the rest it is only to gratify the admirers of a certain eminent PROFESSOR[124] who, as an Oxford friend writes me word, hath many delightful instances of this sort in his very edifying discourses on the Hebrew poetry.
Fourthly, Another contrivance of near affinity to this, is, when you oppose his principles indeed, but let his arguments quite alone. Of this management a wary reader will discover many traces in your obliging discourse. And can any thing be more generous than to ease a man of the shame of seeing his own reasonings confuted, or even produced when the writer’s purpose requires him to pay no regard to them? Such tenderness, I think, though it is pretended to by others, can, of right, belong only to the true friend. But your kindness knows no bounds. For,
Fifthly, Though you find yourself sometimes obliged to produce and confute his reasonings, you take care to furnish him with better of your own. The delicacy of this conduct lies in the good opinion, which is insinuated of the writer’s conclusion, and in the readiness which you shew to support it even in spite of himself. There is a choice instance in that part of your discourse, where agreeing with your friend that the punishments of Tartarus are properly eternal, you reject his reason for that conclusion, but supply him with many others in its stead.
“This alone will not prove the eternity of punishments for, &c.—But if to this you add the Platonic doctrine, that very wicked spirits were never released from Tartarus, AND the silence of Virgil as to any dismission from that jail, AND the censure of the Epicureans, who objected to religious systems the eternity of punishments,
Æternas quoniam pœnas in morte timendum;
AND the general doctrine of the mythologists, AND the opinion of Servius, that Virgil was to be taken in this sense, we may conclude that the punishments in his Tartarus were probably eternal[125].”
Never let men talk after this of the niggardliness of your friendship, when, though you take from him with one hand, you restore him five-fold with the other.
After such an overflow of goodness, nothing I can now advance will seem incredible. I take upon me to affirm therefore,
Sixthly, That it is a mere calumny to say that you have contented yourself, though you very well might, with mere negative encomiums. You can venture on occasion to quote from your friend in form, and, as it should seem, with some apparent approbation. An instance is now before me. You cite what the author of the D. L. says of “the transformation of the ships into sea deities, by which, says he, Virgil would insinuate, I suppose, the great advantage of cultivating a naval power, such as extended commerce and the dominion of the ocean: which in poetical language is becoming deities of the sea.”