being thrown down so violently on his mother earth; like Anthæus, it rose still fresh ; and like Proteus, it assumed new forms. Lady Hill and the young Hills were claimants on his industry far louder than the evanescent epigrams which darted around him these latter, however, were more numerous than ever dogged an author in his road to literary celebrity'. His science, sentimental critic enters into the feelings of the great authors whom he describes, with spirit, delicacy of state, and sometimes with beautiful illustration. It only wants a chastening hand to become a manual for the young classical student, by which he might acquire those vivid emotions, which many college tutors may not be capable of communicating. I suspect, too, he is the author of this work, from a passage which Smart quotes, as a specimen of Hill's puffing himself, and of those smart short periods which look like wit, without being witty. In a letter to himself, as we are told, Hill writes: "You have discovered many of the beauties of the ancients--they are obliged to you; we are obliged to you were they alive, they would thank you; we, who are alive, do thank you." If Hill could discriminate the most hidden beauties of the ancients, the lact must have been formed at his leisure -in his busy hours he never copied them; but when had he leisure? Two other works, of the most contrasted character, display the versatility and dispositions of this singular genius, at different eras. When "The Inspector" was rolling in his chariot about the town, appeared "Letters from the Inspector to a Lady, 1752." It is a pamphlet, containing the amorous correspondence of Hill with a reigning beauty, whom he first saw at Ranelagh. On his first ardent professions he is contemptuously rejected; he perseveres in high passion, and is coldly encouraged; at length be triumphs; and this proud and sullen beauty, in her turn, presents a horrid picture of the passions. Hill then becomes the reverse of what he was; weary of her jealousy, sated with the intercourse, he studiously avoids, and at length rejects her; assigning, for his final argument, his approaching marriage. The work may produce a moral effect, while it exhibits a striking picture of all the misery of illicit connexions : but the scenes are coloured with Ovidian warmth. The original letters were shown at the bookseller's Hill's were in his own hand-writing, and the lady's in female hand. But whether Hill was the publisher, as an attempt at notoriety-or the lady admired her own correspondence, which is often exquisitely wrought, is not known. Hill, in his serious hours, published a large quarto volume, entitled "Thoughts concerning God and Nature, 1755." This work, the result of his scientific knowledge and his moral reasoning, was never undertaken for the purpose of profit. He printed it with the certainty of a considerable loss, from its abstract topics, not obvious to general readers; at a time, too, when a guinea quarto was a very hazardous enterprise. He published it purely from conscientious and religious motives; a circumstance mentioned in that Apology of his Life which ⚫ we have noticed. The more closely the character of Hill is scrutinised, the more extraordinary appears this man, so often justly contemned, and so often unjustly depreciated. It would occupy pages to transcribe epigrams on Hill. One of them alludes to his philosophical as well as his literary character : "Hill puffs himself; forbear to chide! An insect vile and mean Must first, he knows, be magnified Before it can be seen." Garrick's happy lines are well know, on his farces : : 1 his ingenuity, and his impudence, once more practised on the credulity of the public, with the innocent quackery of attributing all medicinal virtues to British herbs. He made many walk out, who were too sedentary: they were delighted to cure headaches by fever-few tea; hectic fevers by the daisy; colics by the leaves of camomile, and agues by its flowers. All these were accompanied by plates of the plants, with the Linnæan names '. This was preparatory to the Essences of Sage, Balsams of Honey, and Tinctures of Valerian. Simple persons imagined they were scientific botanists in their walks, with Hill's plates in their hands. But one of the newly-discovered virtues of British herbs was, undoubtedly, that of placing the discoverer in a chariot. In an Apology for the character of Sir John Hill, published after his death, where he is painted with much beauty of colouring, and elegance of form, the eruptions and excrescences of his motley physiognomy, while they are indicated, for they were too visible to be entirely omitted in anything pretending to a resemblance,-are melted down, and even touched into a grace. The Apology is not unskilful, but the real purpose appears in the last page; where we are informed that Lady Hill, fortunately for the world, possesses all his valuable receipts and herbal remedies! "For physic and farces his equal there scarce is- Another said "The worse that we wish thee, for all thy vile crimes, The rejoinder would reverse the wish "For, if he takes his physic first, He'll never read his rhymes." Hill says, in his pamphlet on the "Virtues of British Herbs: "-"It will be happy, if, by the same means, the knowledge of plants also becomes more general. The study of them is pleasant, and the exercise of it healthful. He who seeks the herb for its cure, will find it half effected by the walk; and when he is acquainted with the useful kinds, he may be more people's, beside his own, physician." 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 re ly 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 Christ-Church," 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 Christ-church 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 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, had caught the contagion of the prevalent literary controversy who 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." 66 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 Christ-church, of publishing editions of classical authors. Such juvenile editorships served as an easy admission into the fashionable literature of Oxford. Alsop had published the Esop; 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 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. When Boyle's Phalaris appeared, he made this charge in the preface, that having ordered the Epistles to be collated with the MS. in the King's Library, the collator was prevented perfecting the collation by the singular humanity of the library-keeper, who refused any further use of the MS.; pro singulari suâ humanitate negavit: an expression that sharply hit a man marked by the haughtiness of his manners '. Haughtiness was the marking feature of Bentley's literary character; and Bentley, on this insult, informed Boyle of what had passed. He expected that Boyle would have civilly cancelled the page; though he tells us he did not require this, because," to have insisted on the cancel, might have been forcing a gentleman to too low a submission ;"-a siroke of delicacy which will surprise some to discover in the strong character of Bentley. But he was also too haughty to ask a favour, and too conscious of his superiority to betray a feeling of injury. Boyle replied, that the bookseller's account was quite different from the doctor's, who had spoken slightingly of him. Bentley said no more. Three years had nearly elapsed, when Bentley, in a new edition of his friend Wotton's book, published " A Dissertation on the Epistles of the Ancients;" where, reprehending the false criticism of Sir William Temple he asserted that the Fables of Æsop and the Epistles of Phalaris were alike spurious. The blow was levelled at Christ-church, and all "the bees" were brushed down in the warmth of their summer-day. It is remarkable that Bentley kept so long a silence; indeed, he had considered the affair so trivial, that he had preserved no part of the correspondence with Boyle, whom no doubt he slighted as the young editor of a spurious author. But Boyle's edition came forth, as Bentley expresses it, “with a sting in its mouth." This, at first, was like a cut finger-he breathed on it, and would have forgotten it; but the nerve was touched, and the pain raged long after the stroke. Even the great mind of Bentley began to shrink at the touch of literary calumny, so different from the vulgar kind, in its extent and its duration. He betrays the soreness he would wish to conceal, when he complains that "the false story has been spread all over England.” The statement of Bentley produced, in reply, the famous book of Boyle's Examination of Bentley's Dissertation. It opens with an imposing narrative highly polished, of the whole transaction, with the extraordinary furniture of documents, which had never before entered into a literary controversy-depositions-certificates-affidavits and private letters. Bentley now rejoined by his enlarged Dissertation on Phalaris, a volume of perpetual value to the lovers of ancient literature, and the memorable preface of which, itself a volume, exhibits another Narrative, en his Wolseyan style and air have been played on by the wits.-Bentley happened to express himself on the King's MS. of Phalaris in a manner their witty malic turned against him. "'Twas a surprise (he said) to find that our MS. was not perused."-"OUR MS. (they proceed) that is, his Majesty's and mine! He speaks out now; 'tis no longer the King's, but OUR MS., i. e. Dr. Bentley's and the King's in common, Ego et Rex meus-much too familiar for a library-keeper!" -It has been said that Bentley used the same Wolseyan egotism, on Pope's publications :—“This man is always abusing me or the King!” |