Born, at Oulton, near Wakefield, 27 Jan. 1662. Educated at a day school near Oulton; at Wakefield Grammar School, 1673–76. To St. John’s College, Cambridge, as subsizar, 24 May 1676; matriculated, 6 July 1676; Dowman Scholar, 4 Nov. 1678; Constable Scholarship, 1679; B.A., 1680; M.A., July 1683. Master of School at Spalding for short time in 1682. Private tutor to son of Dr. Stillingfleet, 1682–89. Went to reside in Oxford, 1689. Ordained Chaplain to Dr. Stillingfleet, 16 March 1690. First Boyle Lecturer, 1692. Prebend of Worcester, 1692. Keeper of Royal Libraries, 1694. F.R.S., 1694. Chaplain in Ordinary to King, 1695. D.D., Oxford, July 1696. To official residence as Royal Librarian, in St. James’s Palace, 1696. Active part in restoring Cambridge University Press. Appointed Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1 Feb. 1700. Married Joanna Bernard, 1701. Had four children. Tried before Bishop of Ely for unconstitutional practices as Master of Trinity, 1714, Bishop of Ely died before giving judgment, so trial lapsed. Deprived of degrees by University, having failed to appear in Vice-Chancellor’s Court to answer suit of Conyers Middleton respecting fees, 1718. Degrees restored, 26 Mar. 1724. Again tried before Bishop of Ely for proceeding as Master of Trinity, 1733. Deprived of Mastership, 27 April 1734. Execution of sentence prevented by action of Bentley’s friends. Paralytic stroke, 1739. Wife died, 1740. He died, 14 July 1742. Buried in Trinity College Chapel. Works: “Letter to Mill” (as appendix to the “Chronicle of Malala”), 1691; “The Folly and Unreasonableness of Atheism” (Boyle Lectures), 1693; “Of Revelation and the Messias,” 1696; “A Proposal for building a Royal Library,” 1697; “Dissertation upon the Letters of Phalaris” (in second edn. of Dr. Wotton’s “Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning”), 1697; expanded edition, pub. separately, with answer to C. Boyle, 1699; “Emendationes in Menandri et Philemonis Reliquias” (under pseud. of “Phileleutherus Lipsiensis”), 1710; “The Present State of Trinity College,” 1710; “Remarks upon a late discourse of Free-Thinking” (anon.), 1713; “A Sermon upon Popery,” 1715; “A Sermon preached before Her Majesty,” 1717; “Proposals for printing a new edition of the Greek Testament” (anon.), 1721; “Emendations on the twelve books of Paradise Lost,” 1732. Posthumous: “Opuscula Philologica,” 1781; “R. Bentleii et doctorum virorum Epistolæ,” 1807; “Correspondence,” ed. by C. Wordsworth (2 vols.), 1842; “Critica Sacra,” ed. by A. A. Ellis, 1862. He edited: Malala, 1691; Callimachus, 1692; Cicero (“Tusculan Disputations”), 1709; Aristophanes, 1710; Horace, 1711; Terence, 1726; Milton (“Paradise Lost”), 1732. He also at various times annotated: Antigonus, Lucan, Lucretius, Nicander, Ovid, Phædrus, Philostratus, Plautus and Suetonius. Collected Works: ed. by Dyce (3 vols.), 1836–38. Life: by J. H. Monk (2nd edn.), 1833; by Prof. Jebb (“English Men of Letters” series), 1882.
Personal
The guardian of the regal library, a person of great valour, but chiefly renowned for his humanity, had been a fierce champion for the moderns; and, in an engagement upon Parnassus, had vowed, with his own hands, to knock down two of the ancient chiefs, who guarded a small pass on the superior rock; but, endeavouring to climb up, was cruelly obstructed by his own unhappy weight, and tendency towards his centre.
Bentley will always be an ill-bred pedant; can the leopard change his skin?
Yesterday I heard that, whereas Dr. Bentley talked much of putting out a new edition of Homer, he is now mighty warm about an edition of Ovid; for no other reason but out of spite to Peter Burman, a foreigner, who hath lately published Ovid. Thus does this poor, old, spiteful man turn all his thoughts upon revenge, and spends his time in mere trifles.
Bullum is a tall raw-boned man, I believe near six inches and a half high; from his infancy he applied himself, with great industry, to the old Blefuscudian language, in which he made such a progress, that he almost forgot his native Lilliputian: and at this time he can neither write nor speak two sentences, without a mixture of old Blefuscudian. These qualifications, joined to an undaunted forward spirit, and a few good friends, prevailed with the Emperor’s grandfather to make him keeper of his library, and a Mulro in the Gomflastru; though most men thought him fitter to be one of the Royal Guards. These places soon helped him to riches, and upon the strength of them he soon began to despise every body, and to be despised by every body. This engaged him in many quarrels, which he managed in a very odd manner; whenever he thought himself affronted, he immediately flung a great book at his adversary, and if he could, felled him to the earth; but if his adversary stood his ground and flung another book at him, which was sometimes done with great violence, then he complained to the Grand Justiciary, that these affronts were designed to the Emperor, and that he was singled out only as being the Emperor’s servant. By this trick he got that great officer to favour him, which made his enemies cautious, and him insolent.
Dr. Bentley, when he came to town, was accustomed, in his visits to Lord Carteret, sometimes to spend the evenings with his Lordship. One day old Lady Granville reproached her son with keeping the country clergyman, who was with him the night before, till he was intoxicated. Lord Carteret denied the charge; upon which the lady replied, that the clergyman could not have sung in so ridiculous a manner, unless he had been in liquor. The truth of the case was, that the singing thus mistaken by her Ladyship, was Dr. Bentley’s endeavour to instruct and entertain his noble friend, by reciting Terence according to the true cantilena of the ancients.
I had a sister somewhat elder than myself. Had there been any of that sternness in my grandfather, which is so falsely imputed to him, it may well be supposed we should have been awed into silence in his presence, to which we were admitted every day. Nothing can be further from the truth; he was the unwearied patron and promoter of all our childish sports and sallies; at all times ready to detach himself from any topic of conversation to take an interest and bear his part in our amusements. The eager curiosity natural to our age, and the questions it gave birth to, so teazing to many parents, he, on the contrary, attended to and encouraged, as the claims of infant reason never to be evaded or abused; strongly recommending, that to all such inquiries answers should be given according to the strictest truth, and information dealt to us in the clearest terms, as a sacred duty never to be departed from. I have broken in upon him many a time in his hours of study, when he would put his book aside, ring his handbell for his servant, and be led to his shelves to take down a picture-book for my amusement…. His domestic habits, when I knew him, were still those of unabated study; he slept in the room adjoining to his library, and was never with his family till the hour of dinner; at these times he seemed to have detached himself most completely from his studies; never appearing thoughtful and abstracted, but social, gay, and possessing perfect serenity of mind and equability of temper. He never dictated topics of conversation to the company he was with, but took them up as they came in his way, and was a patient listener to other people’s discourse, however trivial or uninteresting it might be.
The habits of Dr. Bentley’s domestic life continued in the same simple and uniform course for many years. The greater part of each day he passed in his study, where he breakfasted alone; he joined his family at the other meals, and at ten o’clock for evening prayers; after which they retired for their night’s repose. Habited in his dressing-gown, he pursued his studies with the same application as had distinguished the earlier periods of his life. The tempestuous feuds in which he was now embarked appear neither to have deranged his habits, nor affected his health. The only change which they produced in his course of life was by obliging him to make more frequent journeys to London, and pass a longer time at his residence in Cotton House…. It appears to me that his passions were not always under the controul, nor his actions under the guidance, of Christian principles; that, in consequence, pride and ambition, the faults to which his nature was most exposed, were suffered to riot without restraint; and that hence proceeded the display of arrogance, selfishness, obstinacy, and oppression, by which it must be confessed that his career was disfigured. That nature however had not denied to him certain amiable qualities of the heart, and that he possessed in a considerable degree many of the social and endearing virtues, is proved beyond a doubt by the warm and steady affection with which he was regarded by his family and his intimate friends.
In his domestic relations, Bentley was not only blameless, but exemplary; and domestic virtue always brings its own reward. Whatever brawls disturbed him without, “he still had peace at home,” nor did he carry his despotic rule and contumelious language to his own fireside; if he called his children names,—they were names of fondness. If he erred, it was in too partial a regard to his kindred or dependents. For forty years he was the affectionate husband of a virtuous wife, who never had reason to complain that his controversies or his lawsuits had soured his temper.
His spirit, daring even to rashness—self-confident, even to negligence—and proud, even to insolent ferocity,—was awed for the first and for the last time—awed, not into meanness or cowardice, but into wariness and sobriety. For once he ran no risks; he left no crevice unguarded; he wantoned in no paradoxes; above all, he returned no railing for the railing of his enemies. In almost everything that he has written we can discover proofs of genius and learning. But it is only here that his genius and learning appear to have been constantly under the guidance of good sense and good temper.
In the hall of the College, where many celebrated names are commemorated by the portraits on the walls, places of honour are assigned to Bacon, Barrow, Newton, and Bentley. The features of the great scholar speak with singular force from the canvas of Thornhill, who painted him in his forty-eighth year, the very year in which his struggle with the College began. That picture, Bentley’s own bequest, is in the Master’s Lodge. The pose of the head is haughty, almost defiant; the eyes, which are large, prominent, and full of bold vivacity, have a light in them as if Bentley were looking straight at an impostor whom he had detected, but who still amused him; the nose, strong and slightly tip-tilted, is moulded as if Nature had wished to show what a nose can do for the combined expression of scorn and sagacity; and the general effect of the countenance, at a first glance, is one which suggests power—frank, self-assured, sarcastic, and, I fear we must add, insolent: yet, standing a little longer before the picture, we become aware of an essential kindness in those eyes of which the gaze is so direct and intrepid; we read in the whole face a certain keen veracity; and the sense grows—this was a man who could hit hard, but who would not strike a foul blow, and whose ruling instinct, whether always a sure guide or not, was to pierce through falsities to truth.
You will think furthermore of this Dr. Bentley as living through all his fierce battles of criticisms and of college mastership to an extreme old age, and into days when Swift and Pope and Steele and Addison were all gone—a gray, rugged, persistent, captious old man, with a great, full eye that looked one through and through, and with a short nose, turned up—as if he always scented a false quantity in the air.
Mastership of Trinity
I find the gentlemen of both Universitys equally amused upon our friend Dr. Bentley’s promotion to Trinity College Mastership.
We may strip him of his titles, but we never can, we see, of his insolence; he has ceased to be Doctor, and may cease to be Professor, but he can never cease to be Bentley. There he will triumph over the University to the last; all its learning being unable to polish, its manners to soften, or its discipline to tame the superior obstinacy of his genius…. There is something so singularly rude and barbarous in his way of treating all mankind, that whoever has occasion to relate it, will, instead of aggravating, find himself obliged to qualify and soften the harshness of his story, lest it should pass for incredible.
Between Bentley and his antagonists the differences were vital. Bentley had a good heart; generally speaking, his antagonists had not. Bentley was overbearing, impatient of opposition, domineering, sometimes tyrannical. He had, and deservedly, a very lofty opinion of himself; he either had, or affected, too mean a one of his antagonists. Sume superbiam quæsitam meritis was the motto which he avowed. Coming to the government of a very important college, at a time when its discipline had been greatly relaxed and the abuses were many, his reforms (of which some have been retained even to this day) were pushed with too high a hand; he was too negligent of any particular statute that stood in his way; showed too harsh a disregard to the feelings of gentlemen; and too openly disdained the arts of conciliation. Yet this same man was placable in the highest degree; was generous; needed not to be conciliated by sycophantic arts; and, at the first moment when his enemies would make an opening for him to be so, was full of forgiveness. His literary quarrels, which have left the impression that he was irritable or jealous, were (without one exception) upon his part mere retorts to the most insufferable provocations; and, though it is true that, when once teased into rousing himself out of his lair, he did treat his man with rough play, left him ugly remembrances of his leonine power, and made himself merry with his distressed condition, yet, on the other hand, in his utmost wrath, there was not a particle of malice.
The Fellows, as a body, were liable to no such charges as Bentley in his anger brought against them; not a few of them were eminent in the University; and if there were any whose lives would not bear scrutiny, they were at most two or three, usually non-resident, and always without influence. It may safely be said that no large society of that time, in either University, would have sustained an inspection with more satisfactory results. The average College Fellow of that period was a moderately accomplished clergyman, whose desire was to repose in decent comfort on a small freehold. Bentley swooped on a large house of such persons—not ideal students, yet, on the whole, decidedly favourable specimens of their kind; he made their lives a burden to them, and then denounced them as the refuse of humanity when they dared to lift their heads against his insolent assumption of absolute power. They bore it as long as flesh and blood could. For nearly eight years they endured. At last, in December, 1709, things came to a crisis—almost by an accident…. It is good to be in sympathy with an illustrious man, but it is better still to be just. The merits of the controversy between Bentley and the Fellows have two aspects, legal and moral. The legal question is simple. Had Bentley, as Master, brought himself within the meaning of the fortieth Elizabethan Statute, and deserved the penalty of deprivation? Certainly he had. It was so found on two distinct occasions, twenty years apart, after a prolonged investigation by lawyers. Morally, the first question is: Was Bentley obliged to break the Statutes in order to keep some higher law? He certainly was not.
Letter to Mill, 1691
In order that the truth should be published and proved, we needed the learned daring of Richard Bentley—daring which here, if anywhere, served literature better than the sluggish and credulous superstition of those who wish to be called and deemed critics. Bentley shook off the servile yoke, and put forth that famous “Letter to Mill”—a wonderful monument of genius and learning, such as could have come only from the first critic of his time.
Malelas had been long and anxiously expected by the learned; and his appearance interested them, not from his own merits, which were slender, but from those of the Appendix. The various and accurate learning, and the astonishing sagacity displayed in the “Epistle to Mill,” attracted the attention of every person capable of judging upon such subjects. The originality of Bentley’s style, the boldness of his opinions, and his secure reliance upon unfailing stores of learning, all marked him out as a scholar to be ranked with Scaliger, Casaubon, and Gataker. Notwithstanding the reluctance with which the pretensions of a new author are usually admitted, and the small number of persons to whom such writings were likely to recommend themselves, we find that the fame of our critic was at once established: in particular, among foreign scholars, the sensation produced by this essay of a young and unknown writer, seems to have been unexampled; and Grævius and Spanheim, the chiefs of the learned world, pronounced him “the rising constellation” of literature, and anticipated the brilliancy of his course.
This short tractate at once placed Bentley at the head of all living English scholars. The ease with which, by a stroke of the pen, he restores passages, which had been left in hopeless corruption by the editors of the “Chronicle,” the certainty of the emendation, and the command over the relevant material, are in a style totally different from the careful and laborious learning of Hody, Mill, or Chilmead. To the small circle of classical students it was at once apparent that there had arisen in England a critic, whose attainments were not to be measured by the ordinary academical standard, but whom these few pages had sufficed to place by the side of the great Grecians of a former age.
Boyle Lectures, 1692
One of the most learned and convincing discourses I had ever heard.
The reader of these discourses is informed and delighted by the variety of knowledge which they contain, and their close and convincing train of reasoning. The success with which Bentley unmasks the tenets of the atheist, grapples with his arguments, and exposes his fallacies, has never been surpassed, and scarcely equalled, in the wars of controversy. He steadily follows up his antagonist, and never fails to dislodge him from his positions. Various as are the topics which come under discussion, he appears at home in all, and displays a familiarity with metaphysics, natural history, and philosophy, altogether wonderful in a person coming fresh from the field of classical criticism. His ancient learning is introduced in a happy and agreeable manner, when he compares the theories of modern sceptics with those of the heathen philosophers.
As a preacher Bentley could not but occupy a high place in point of depth, and the power of exciting that interest which follows the guidance of a great intellect in the contemplation of the duties of time and the awful realities of eternity. For that style of exhortation which awakens the affections, and secures the convictions of the judgment by the impulses of the heart, the preacher was unequal. He enforced the truths of revelation by the teachings of nature, as expounded by her greatest interpreter, the immortal Newton. A sermon of Bentley’s based upon a thesis of Newton’s must have been an intellectual gratification not unworthy an angelic auditory. But we fear that in simply “vindicating the ways of God to man,” but little would be done to reconcile the heart of man to God. Accurate, precise, and exhaustive he could not fail to be.
The Lectures made a deep and wide impression. Soon after they had been published, a Latin version appeared at Berlin. A Dutch version subsequently came out at Utrecht. There was one instance, indeed, of dissent from the general approval. A Yorkshire squire wrote a pamphlet, intimating that his own experience did not lead him to consider the faculties of the human soul as a decisive argument for the existence of a Deity; and, referring to Bentley’s observations on this head, he remarked, “I judge he hath taken the wrong sow by the ear.”
Dissertations on Phalaris, 1695–99
As the first (Æsop) has been agreed by all ages since, for the greatest master in his kind, and all others of that sort have been but imitations of his original; so I think the “Epistles of Phalaris” to have more race, more spirit, more force of wit and genius, than any others I have ever seen, either ancient or modern. I know several learned men (or that usually pass for such, under the name of critics) have not esteemed them genuine, and Politian with some others have attributed them to Lucian: but I think he must have little skill in painting, that cannot find out this to be an original; such diversity of passions, upon such variety of actions and passages of life and government, such freedom of thought, such boldness of expression, such bounty to his friends, such scorn of his enemies, such honour of learned men, such esteem of good, such knowledge of life, such contempt of death, with such fierceness of nature and cruelty of revenge, could never be represented but by him that possessed them; and I esteem Lucian to have been no more capable of writing, than of acting what Phalaris did. In all one writ, you find the scholar or the sophist; and in all the other, the tyrant and the commander.
The reader of these “Letters” will find less profit in introducing who wrote them than pleasure in enjoying the perusal. As to the authorship, the conflicting opinions of learned men must be consulted—perhaps in vain; as to the worth of the book, the reader can judge best for himself. Lest I disappoint curiosity, however—though the controversy does not deserve keen zeal on either part—I will briefly explain what seems to me probable on both sides of the question…. I have collated the “Letters” themselves with two Bodleian manuscripts from the Cantuar and Selden collection; I have also procured a collation, as far as Letter XL., of a manuscript in the Royal Library; the Librarian, with that courtesy which distinguishes him [pro singulari sua humanitate], refused me the further use of it. I have not recorded every variation of the MSS. from the printed texts; to do so would have been tedious and useless; but, wherever I have departed from the common reading, my authority will be found in the notes. This little book is indebted to the printer for more than usual elegance; it is hoped that the authour’s labour may bring it an equal measure of acceptance.
I suspect Mr. Boyle is in the right; for our friend’s learning (which I have a great value for) wants a little filing; and I doubt not but a few such strokes as this will do it and him good.
Give me leave, sir, to tell you a secret,—that I have spent a whole day upon Dr. Bentley’s late volume of scandal, and criticism; for every one may not judge it to his credit to be so employed. He thinks meanly, I find, of my reading, as meanly as I think of his sense, his modesty or his manners. If you have looked into it, sir, you have found that a person, under the pretence of criticism, may take what freedom he pleases with the reputation and credit of any gentleman; and that he need not have any regard for another man’s character who has once resolved to expose his own.
As a Woman in a little House, that gets a painful livelihood by spinning; if chance her Geese be scattered o’er the Common, she courses round the plain from side to side, compelling, here and there, the stragglers to the flock; they cackle loud, and flutter o’er the campaign: so Boyle pursued, so fled this Pair of Friends…. As when a skilful Cook has truss’d a brace of Woodcocks, he, with iron Skewer, pierces the tender sides of both, their legs and wings close pinion’d to their ribs; so was this Pair of Friends transfix’d, till down they fell, join’d in their lives, join’d in their deaths; so closely join’d that Charon would mistake them both for one, and waft them over Styx for half his fare.
Before I leave this subject, I will just tell you what Mr. Pope told me, who had been let into the secret, concerning the Oxford performance.—That Boyle wrote only the narrative of what passed between him and the Bookseller, which too was corrected for him; that Friend, the Master of Westminster, and Atterbury wrote the body of the criticisms; and that Dr. King of the Commons wrote the droll argument to prove Dr. Bentley was not the author of the Dissertation on Phalaris, and the Index. And a powerful cabal gave it a surprising run.—Your character of that species of wit, in which Bentley excelled, is just.
I have not enter’d into any of the points of the controversy, as it would be a disagreeable as well as unnecessary task, but shall only observe, that tho’ several very specious arguments are brought by doctor Bentley, the strongest of them do only affect particular Epistles; which, as Mr. Boyle observes, “do not hurt the whole body; for in a collection of pieces that have no dependence on each other, as epistles, epigrams, fables, the first number may be increased by the wantonness and vanity of imitators in after-times, and yet the book be authentic in the main, and an original still.”
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…. 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 showing how Bentley wanted wit, and Bentley was proving how Boyle wanted learning.
On Bentley’s memorable performances, the “Dissertations on Phalaris,” criticism has been exhausted. In the just arrangement of the matter, in the logical precision of the arguments, and in the readiness and skill with which the most extensive and refined erudition is brought to bear upon the points contested, it is perhaps unrivalled by any single work. Enriched with incidental disquisitions on many different topics of classical learning, it will ever be prized by the student as a storehouse of important information.
The Cambridge giant of criticism replied in an answer which goes by the name of Bentley against Boyle. It was the first great literary war that had been waged in England; and, like that of Troy, it has still the prerogative of being remembered, after the “Epistles of Phalaris” are almost as much buried as the walls of Troy itself. Both combatants were skilful in wielding the sword: the arms of Boyle, in Swift’s language, were given him by all the gods; but his antagonist stood forward in no such figurative strength, master of a learning to which nothing parallel had been known in England, and that directed by an understanding prompt, discriminating, not idly sceptical, but still farther removed from trust in authority, sagacious in perceiving corruptions of language, and ingenious, at the least, in removing them; with a style rapid, concise, amusing, and superior to Boyle in that which he had chiefly to boast, a sarcastic wit.
How much do I regret that I have neither learning nor eyesight thoroughly to enjoy Bentley’s masterly “Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris!” Many years ago I read the work with infinite pleasure. As far as I know, or rather am able to judge, it is without a rival in that department of literature; a work of which the English nation may be proud as long as acute intellect, and vigorous powers, and profound scholarship shall be esteemed in the world.
The finest piece of erudite criticism that has ever proceeded from an English pen.
To any one who has looked into this dead controversy, it is curious to note how the great scholar outrages pure idiomatic English in the criticisms that established his mastership over the Greek.
A curious fatality attended on Bentley’s adversaries in this controversy. While they dealt thrusts at points where he was invulnerable, they missed all the chinks in his armour except a statement limiting too narrowly the use of two Greek verbs, and his identification of “Alba Graeca” with Buda instead of Belgrade. Small and few, indeed, these chinks were. It would have been a petty, but fair, triumph for his opponents, if they had perceived that, in correcting a passage of Aristophanes, he had left a false quantity. They might have shown that a passage in Diodorus had led him into an error regarding Attic chronology during the reign of the Thirty Tyrants. They might have exulted in the fact that an emendation which he proposed in Isæus rested on a confusion between two different classes of choruses; that he had certainly misconstrued a passage in the life of Pythagoras by Iamblichus; that the “Minos,” on which he relies as Plato’s work, was spurious; that, in one of the “Letters of Phalaris,” he had defended a false reading by false grammar. They could have shown that Bentley was demonstrably wrong in asserting that no writings, bearing the name of Æsop, were extant in the time of Aristophanes; also in stating that the Fable of “The Two Boys” had not come down to the modern world: it was, in fact, very near them—safe in a manuscript at the Bodleian Library. Even the discussion on Zaleucus escaped: its weak points were first brought out by later critics—Warburton, Salter, Gibbon. Had such blemishes been ten times more numerous, they would not have affected the worth of the book; but, such as they were, they were just of the kind which small detractors delight to magnify. In one place Bentley accuses Boyle of having adopted a wrong reading in one of the Letters, and thereby made nonsense of the passage. Now, Boyle’s reading, though not the best, happens to be capable of yielding the very sense which Bentley required. Yet even this Boyle and his friends did not discover.
Bentley replied by publishing, early in 1699, an enlarged Dissertation, which has justly been regarded as marking an epoch not only in the life of the author but also in the history of literature. His victory was really complete, but its effect was not immediately felt in all its fulness. Not one, however, of the Boylean confederacy ever again appeared before the world as a critic, though many years had to elapse before Tyrwhitt could describe the opponents of Bentley as “laid low by the thunderbolt,” or Porson pronounce it an “immortal dissertation.” Even apart from the merits of the purely controversial portions, it has a permanent value owing to the vast amount of interesting and accurate information which it embodies on points of history and chronology, antiquities; philology, and criticism—such as the age of Pythagoras, the origins of Greek tragedy, the anapæstic metre, and the coinage of Sicily. It is not solely “a masterpiece of controversy” and a “store-house of erudition.” It is also an example of critical method, marking the beginning of the critical school of classical scholarship, which henceforth prevailed among the leading representatives of learning in England and Holland, until it was succeeded by the systematic or encyclopædic school of scholarship, which begins in Germany about 1783 with the great name of Friedrich Augustus Wolf.
Horace, 1711
I am indebted to you, Sir, for the great pleasure and instruction I have received from that excellent performance; though at ye same time I cannot but own to you the uneasyness I felt when I found how many things in Horace there were, which, after thirty years’ acquaintance with him, I did not understand.
Take Bentley’s and Jason de Nores’ Comments upon Horace, you will admire Bentley more when wrong, than Jason when right.
This publication had been long and anxiously expected, and its appearance excited much sensation and surprise. There were found between seven and eight hundred alterations of the common readings of Horace; all of which, contrary to the general practice of classical editors, were introduced into the text. Scholars, having been familiar from their childhood with the works of this poet, were unwilling to believe that they had been all their lives mistaken in those passages which had afforded them unceasing gratification. Many indeed of Bentley’s readings are those of old editions and manuscripts; but the greater part are the fruit of his own conjecture, supported by arguments always plausible and ingenious, and not unfrequently convincing. A person, who at first rejects his correction and declares a preference for the old reading, will sometimes be surprised to find his opinion changed on perusing the note, and be compelled to acknowledge the justice of the emendation: and this is a result of his labours which the Doctor anticipated, not without exultation. But while some of his new readings are fairly established, a larger proportion must be confessed to be dubious. Many of his changes are unnecessary, others harsh and improbable. He shows a propensity to confine the limits of poetical licence too closely, and thus to reduce the language of Horace into prose.
On the merits and defects of Bentley’s Horace, none but the accomplished scholar can expatiate, and none but professional scholars could feel much interest in the discussion. The intrusion of the conjectural readings into the text has been censured as altogether unwarrantable. Many of them go to crop the most delicate flowers of Horatian fancy, and sheer away the love-locks which the world has doated on. The value of the work consists in the extraordinary display of learning and ingenuity which the defence of these innovations called forth, in the skilful allegation of parallel passages; in the wonderful adroitness with which every line and every letter that supports the proposed change is hunted out from the obscurest corners of Roman literature, and made to bear on the case in point, and in the logical dexterity with which apparent objections are turned into confirmations. Vast as was Bentley’s reading, none of it was superfluous, for he turns it all to account; his felicity in fixing his eye at once on what he needed, in always finding the evidence that he wanted, often where no one else would have thought of looking for it, is almost preturnatural. His learning suggested all the phrases that might be admitted in any given passage; but his taste did not always lead him to select the best.
Speaking of Bentley’s readings in the mass, one may say that Horace would probably have liked two or three of them—would have allowed a very few more as not much better or worse than his own—and would have rejected the immense majority with a smile or a shudder.
In this work the editor puts too strict a limit to the author’s poetic fancy, and thus too often reduces the poetry of Horace to the level of precise and logical prose. But even the very errors of so great a critic are often instructive, and the commentary abounds in unquestionably valuable hints on grammar and metre, while in the preface we have a serious attempt to deal with the chronology of the poet’s works.
Remarks on a Late Discourse of Free-Thinking, 1713
Whereas the Reverend Dr. Bentley, Master of Trinity College, besides his other labours published from our press, to the great advancement of learning and honour of this University, has lately, under the borrowed name of “Phileleutherus Lipsiensis,” done eminent service to the Christian Religion, and the Clergy of England, by refuting the objections and exposing the ignorance of an impious set of writers, that call themselves Freethinkers—May it please you that the said Dr. Bentley, for his good services already done, have the public thanks of the University; and be desired by Mr. Vice Chancellor, in the name of the whole body, to finish what remains of so useful a work.
Nothing can be more judicious, or effectual than the manner in which the Doctor takes to pieces the shallow but dangerous performance of the infidel. Not satisfied with replying to particular arguments, he cuts the ground from under his feet, by exposing the fallacious mode of reasoning which pervades them all, and the contemptible sophism which represents all good and great men of every age and country to have been “free-thinkers,” and consequently partizans of his own sect. But the happiest of the Remarks are those which display the mistakes and ignorance of Collins in his citations from classical writers. By a kind of fatality, his translations are perpetually inaccurate, and his conception of the originals erroneous: and though most of his blunders are the effects of ignorance, yet not a few seem to arise from a deliberate intention of deceiving his readers. Never was the advantage more conspicuous of a ripe and perfect scholar over a half-learned smatterer: while the latter searches book after book in pursuit of passages favourable to his own theory, the former, familiar with the writings and characters of the authors, and accurately versed in their language, is able to take to pieces the ill-assorted patchwork of irrelevant quotations. These parts of Bentley’s work are not only effectual in demolishing his adversary, but are both entertaining and useful to the reader; and to them it is owing that the book has experienced a fate so different from that of other controversial writings: even the ablest and best-written of such pieces generally fall into oblivion along with the dispute which gave them birth; but the “Remarks of Phileleutherus” are still read with the same delight as at their first appearance.
Another, perhaps the only other, book of this polemical tribe which can be said to have been completely successful as an answer, is one most unlike the “Analogy” in all its nobler features. This is Bentley’s “Remarks upon a late Discourse of Freethinking, by Phileleutherus Lipsiensis,” 1713. Coarse, arrogant, and abusive, with all Bentley’s worst faults of style and temper, this masterly critique is decisive…. It is rare sport to Bentley, this rat-hunting in an old rick, and he lays about him in high glee, braining an authority at every blow. When he left off abruptly, in the middle of a “Third Part,” it was not because he was satiated with slaughter, but to substitute a new excitement, no less congenial to his temper—a quarrel with the University about his fees. A grace, voted 1715, tendering him the public thanks of the University, and “praying him in the name of the University to finish what remains of so useful a work,” could not induce him to resume his pen. The “Remarks of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis,” unfinished though they are, and trifling as was the book which gave occasion to them, are perhaps the best of all Bentley’s performances. They have all the merits of the “Phalaris” dissertation, with the advantage of a far nobler subject. They show how Bentley’s exact appreciation of the value of terms could, when he chose to apply it to that purpose, serve him as a key to the philosophical ideas of past times, no less than to those of poetical metaphor. The tone of the pamphlet is most offensive, “not only not insipid, but exceedingly bad-tasted.” We can only say the taste is that of his age, while the knowledge is all his own.
Edition of Paradise Lost, 1732
Our celebrated author, when he composed this poem, being obnoxious to the Government, poor, friendless, and, what is worst of all, blind with a gutta serena, could only dictate his verses to be writ by another. Whence it necessarily follows, that any errors in spelling, pointing, nay even in whole words of a like or near sound in pronunciation, are not to be charged upon the poet, but on the amanuensis.—But more calamities, than are yet mentioned, have happened to our poem: for the friend or acquaintance, whoever he was, to whom Milton committed his copy and the overseeing of the press, did so vilely execute that trust, that Paradise, under his ignorance and audaciousness, may be said to be twice lost. A poor bookseller, then living near Aldersgate, purchased our author’s copy for ten pounds, and (if a second edition followed) for five pounds more; as appears by the original bond, yet in being. This bookseller, and that acquaintance, who seems to have been the sole corrector of the press, brought forth their first edition, polluted with such monstrous faults as are beyond example in any other printed book.—But these typographical faults, occasioned by the negligence of this acquaintance, (if all may be imputed to that, and not several wilfully made) were not the worst blemishes brought upon our poem. For this supposed friend (called in these notes the editor), knowing Milton’s bad circumstances; who (vii. 26)
| “Was fall’n on evil days and evil tongues, | |
| With darkness and with dangers compass’d round | |
| And solitude;” |
| Did Milton’s prose, O Charles, thy death defend? | |
| A furious foe unconscious proves a friend. | |
| On Milton’s verse does Bentley comment.—Know | |
| A weak officious friend becomes a foe. | |
| While he but sought his Author’s fame to further, | |
| The murderous critic has aveng’d thy murder. |
As to Dr. Bentley and Milton, I think the one above and ye other below all criticism.
The generality of my scheme does not admit the frequent notice of verbal inaccuracies; which Bentley, perhaps better skilled in grammar than in poetry, has often found, though he sometimes made them, and which he imputed to the obtrusions of a revisor, whom the author’s blindness obliged him to employ; a supposition rash and groundless, if he thought it true; and vile and pernicious, if, as is said, he in private allowed it to be false.
The classical learning of Bentley was singular and acute, but the erudition of words is frequently found not to be allied to the sensibility of taste.
The great Bentley, when he undertook the editing of Milton, was far advanced in age, and soon after this work, which formed his last publication, his faculties discovered very evident decline. In many of his former works he has displayed a vigour and sagacity of mind, an extent and accuracy of erudition which are truly wonderful, and which, perhaps, have never been exceeded. But his edition of Milton, though it exhibits many characters of the great critic, must be pronounced to be altogether an egregious failure.
His edition of Milton had the same merits as his other editions; peculiar defects it had, indeed, from which his editions of Latin classics were generally free; these, however, were due to no decays in himself, but to original differences in the English classic from any which he could have met with in Pagan literature. The romantic, or Christian, poetry was alien to Bentley’s taste; he had no more sense or organs of perception for this grander and more imaginative order of poetry than a screaming peacock may be supposed to have for the music of Mozart. Consequently, whatsoever was peculiarly characteristic in it seemed to him a monstrous abortion; and, had it been possible that passages in the same impassioned key should occur in the austere and naked words of the Roman or Grecian muse, he would doubtless have proscribed them as interpolations of monks, copyists, or scholiasts, with the same desperate hook which operated so summarily on the text of “Paradise Lost.” With these infirmities, and this constitutional defect of poetic sensibility, the single blunder which he committed was in undertaking such a province. The management of it did him honour; for he complied honestly with the constitution of his own mind, and was right in the sense of taking a true view, though undoubtedly from a false station.
Bentley’s mind was saturated with the authors of antiquity. Their turn of thought, their style of expression, the niceties of their language had been his untiring study from boyhood onwards. To the imaginative poets of England he was a stranger. He was neither accustomed to their ways of thinking, nor their modes of expression, and coming fresh to them when he was close upon seventy he tried them by a standard very unlike their own. An aged, unpliant haughty novice, it was much too late to qualify himself for the commission he had received.
Of inspiration, of refined intelligence of delicacy of taste, of any trace of sympathy with the essentials of poetry, his emendations are totally devoid. If, as is sometimes the case, they are felicitous—ingenious, that is to say, without violating poetic propriety—it is by pure accident. In many instances they literally beggar burlesque.
General
That new and brilliant light of Britain.
A certain Bentley, diligent enough in turning over lexicons.
To answer the reflexion of a private Gentleman with a general abuse of the Society he belong’d to, is the manners of a dirty Boy, upon a Country-Green.
| While Bentley, long to wrangling schools confin’d, | |
| And but by books acquainted with mankind, | |
| Dares, in the fulness of the pedant’s pride, | |
| Rhyme, tho’ no genius; tho’ no judge, decide; | |
| Yet he, prime pattern of the captious art, | |
| Out tibbalding poor Tibbald, tops his part; | |
| Holds high the scourge o’er each fam’d author’s head, | |
| Nor are their graves a refuge for the dead: | |
| To Milton lending sense, to Horace wit, | |
| He makes them write what never poet writ; | |
| The Roman Muse arraigns his mangling pens | |
| And Paradise by him is lost again. | |
| Such was his doom impos’d by Heav’n’s decree, | |
| With ears that hear not, eyes shall not see; | |
| The low to swell, to level the sublime, | |
| To blast all beauty, and beprose all rhyme. |
| Mistress! dismiss that rabble from your throne: | |
| Avaunt—is Aristarchus yet unknown? | |
| Thy mighty Scholiast whose unwearied pains | |
| Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton’s strains. | |
| Turn what they will to Verse, their toil is vain, | |
| Critics like me shall make it Prose again. | |
| Roman and Greek Grammarians! know your Better, | |
| Author of something yet more great than Letter; | |
| While tow’ring o’er your Alphabet, like Saul, | |
| Stands our Digamma, and o’ertops them all. |
To have it said and believed that you are the most learned man in England, would be no more than what was said of Dr. Bentley.
Giant as he was in learning, and eagle-eyed in criticism.
Its editor, [of Julius Pollux] Hemsterhuis,—(for who at the age of eighteen under values himself?)—was well content with his work. In a short time he received a letter from Bentley, the British Aristarchus, in which the labor bestowed upon the edition by Hemsterhuis was highly commended, and at the same time Bentley’s emendations were given of the citations made by Pollux from the comic authors. In restoring these passages Hemsterhuis himself had spared no pains, justly deeming it the most important part of his editorial duty. But, on the perusal of Bentley’s emendations, he perceived his own labor to have been in vain, and that Bentley had accomplished the task with almost superhuman sagacity. And what do you suppose were the feelings of Hemsterhuis under these circumstances? He was so disturbed, so dissatisfied with himself, that he resolved to abandon the study of Greek for ever; nor did he, for two months, dare to touch a Greek author.
A name dreaded as well as respected in literature.
In his emendations, as he calls them, both of Milton and of Horace, for one happy conjecture he makes at least twenty wrong, and ten ridiculous. In the Greek poets, and sometimes in Terence, he, beyond the rest of the pack, was often brought into the trail by scenting an unsoundness in the metre. But let me praise him where few think of praising him, or even of suspecting his superiority. He wrote better English than his adversary Middleton, and established for his university that supremacy in classical literature which it still retains.
In conclusion, I will venture to pronounce Dr. Bentley the greatest man amongst all scholars. In the complexion of his character and the style of his powers he resembled the elder Scaliger, having the same hardihood, energy, and elevation of mind. But Bentley had the advantage of earlier polish, and benefited by the advances of his age. He was, also, in spite of insinuations to the contrary, issuing from Mr. Boyle and his associates, favourably distinguished from the Scaligers, father and son, by constitutional good-nature, generosity and placability. I should pronounce him, also, the greatest of scholars, were it not that I remember Salmasius. Dr. Parr was in the habit of comparing the Phalaris Dissertation with that of Salmasius “De Lingua Hellenistica.” For my own part, I have always compared it with the same writer’s “Plinian Exercitations.” Both are among the miracles of human talent: but with this difference, that the Salmasian work is crowded with errors; whilst that of Bentley, in its latest revision, is absolutely without spot or blemish.
His scheme for an edition of Homer was abandoned, but the germ of all the modern theories on the subject is distinctly developed in his writings. In an article on the Homeric writings, we have ventured to enter our dissent against the prevailing hypothesis of Wolf; but who, at all deeply interested in the writings of the great poet of antiquity, will refuse to acknowledge how infinitely their knowledge has been increased, their delight in the Homeric writings heightened, by the inquiries of that eminent scholar, of Heyne, and of Payne Knight; and what are all these but the acknowledged disciples of Bentley? The whole modern theory of the Homeric versification rests on his discovery of the digamma; and independent of this groundwork of his system, and however imperfect the success of Mr. Knight, who, before the time of Bentley, would have imagined, as he has done, the possibility of restoring the original language in which the Iliad and Odyssey were composed?
Many things now familiar to young academics (thanks to the labours of Dawes, and Burney, and Parr, and Porson, and Elmsley) were utterly unknown to scholars like Bentley, and to Scaliger before him; and though it might seem an ungracious task, it would not be void either of pleasure or of profit to give select specimens of errors in metre and syntax committed by these illustrious men.
Whether his name could be safely placed above that of Erasmus, Scaliger, and Hemsterhuys, not to mention any of the renowned scholars of the last generation, may be a question on which the learned of England and other countries might differ. But this we think may be safely said, that if Bentley, in all other things the same, had passed his life in the quiet of a University in Holland or Germany;—if he had redeemed to those studies for which he was born, the time and the talents which he wasted in the petty squabbles of his College mastership, he would unquestionably have made himself, beyond all rivalry, the most celebrated scholar of modern times…. Bishop Monk bestows on him the epithet of the Prince of Scholars, and, if we were disposed to deny his title to this proud appellation, we should be at a loss to say who better deserves it…. But it cannot be denied by his warmest admirers, that his talent and learning were, even in his literary studies, most wofully misapplied. Of that small portion of leisure for tranquil study, which his contentious spirit left, the greater part was wasted in propping up, with boundless learning and a tact never surpassed, his arbitrary changes in the text of Latin poets. His forte was unquestionably Greek; and though he possessed an acuteness of verbal criticism, which has never been equalled, it is greatly to be deplored, that he has not devoted himself to the elucidation of the really great questions, that present themselves in the compass of Grecian literature.
Bentley, relying upon his own exertions and the resources of his own mind, pursued an original path of criticism, in which the intuitive quickness and subtility of his genius qualified him to excel. In the faculty of memory, so important for such pursuits, he has himself candidly declared that he was not particularly gifted. Consequently he practised throughout life the precaution of noting in the margin of his books the suggestions and conjectures which rushed into his mind during their perusal. To this habit of laying up materials in store, we may partly attribute the surprising rapidity with which some of his most important works were completed.
He stands undoubtedly the very first among all the philological critics of every age and nation, “in shape and gesture proudly eminent.” No single individual ever contributed so much to the actual stores of the learned world, or gave so strong an impulse to the study of the ancient classics. With little either of sensibility or imagination, he possessed an understanding which for compass, strength, and subtlety, has rarely been matched.
The greatest scholar that had appeared in Europe since the revival of letters.
For Bentley he [Porson] preserved through life an unbounded veneration. He calls his work on Phalaris, immortalis illa de Phalaridis Epistolis Dissertatio, and omitted no opportunity of praising him. When, in after life, he had made many emendations in Aristophanes, and Bentley’s copy of that poet was shown him, containing a number of his corrections in the margin, he is said to have shed tears of joy at finding a large portion of Bentley’s conjectures exactly coincide with his own. He once spoke to some scholars at the Gray’s Inn Coffee-House, on Bentley’s literary character, with such warmth of eulogy that a North Briton, who was present, asked him if Bentley was not a Scotchman. “No,” replied Porson, “Bentley was a Greek scholar.” This story is told in more ways than one, but Porson’s stress must have been upon the word “Greek.”
Richard Bentley, therefore, becomes in every respect an important name in our sketch, both because he carried the experimental method, which was the method of the age, into a new region, and because he left behind some examples and some warnings as to the right and wrong use of this method. He showed that it must be applied freely and manfully if it is applied at all; he showed, by his failures as well as his successes, that reverence for an author—for any author whatsoever, be it Horace or Milton—is not a restraint upon sound criticism, but is an indispensable condition of it. He showed that the practical habits which belong to an Englishman—his acquaintance with law courts, and with the rules by which lawyers and men of the world try the truth of testimony—may be of the greatest worth in correcting the formal canons of schoolmen, may often give them quite a new character, and prevent them from leading to utterly false conclusions. But he showed also, that this experience may be purchased very dearly; that the man of letters who aspires to be the man of affairs may become involved in petty quarrels and litigations, which weaken the moral strength if they cultivate the acuteness of the mind. A union of his amazing erudition, minute perception, and practical force, with really high aims, would constitute a critic such as the world has not yet seen.
Bentley is not one among the great classical scholars, but he inaugurates a new era of the art of criticism. He opened a new path. With him criticism attained its majority. When scholars had hitherto offered suggestions and conjectures, Bentley, with unlimited control over the whole material of learning, gave decisions.
Incomparably the first critic of the day.
He had an excellent familiar knowledge of Greek, and was a great interpreter. Yet it must be remembered that he never tried his art upon the more difficult authors. He was better acquainted with the Anthology, Lucian, Suidas, Iamblichus, than with Plato, Thucydides, Sophocles, Æschylus, Pindar, Herodotus, who owe nothing to him. Upon the whole he keeps bad company in literature.
Bentley’s reflections upon language, even when in conflict with sound philosophy, are worthy of study, for even the aberrations of true genius are suggestive. When he philosophizes upon the tendency of speech to constant change, in structure as well as in vocabulary, he seems to have a prevision of comparative philology, and we almost wonder that he has nothing to say about “consonantal interchange,” “phonetic decay,” and the other commonplaces of our modern science.
Bentley’s simple English is racy in a way peculiar to him. It has the tone of a strong mind which goes straight to the truth; it is pointed with the sarcasm of one whose own knowledge is thorough and exact, but who is accustomed to find imposture wrapped up in fine or vague words, and takes an ironical delight in using the very homeliest images and phrases which accurately fit the matter in hand. No one has excelled Bentley in the power of making a pretentious fallacy absurd by the mere force of translation into simple terms; no writer of English has shown greater skill in touching the hidden springs of its native humour.
He left no great work; yet what he did in lines of classical criticism could not by any possibility have been better done by others. He supplied interpretations—where the world had blundered and stumbled—which blazed their way to unquestioned acceptance. He mastered all the difficulties of language, and wore the mastership with a proud and insolent self-assertion—a very Goliath of learning, with spear like a weaver’s beam, and no son of Jesse to lay him low…. When you meet with that name of Bentley you may safely give it great weight in all scholarly matters, and not so much in matters of taste. Trust him in foot-notes to Aristophanes (a good mate for him!) or to Terence; trust him less in foot-notes to Milton, or even Horace (when he leaves prosody to talk of rhythmic susurrus).
Was from the first recognized as a consummate genius by the scholars of Germany, by Grævius and Spanheim, who welcomed him as “novum et lucidum Britanniæ sidus,” as “splendidissimum Britanniæ lumen.” The many beginnings which he had laid for subsequent critical research among the ancient classical authors were taken up abroad by men like Heyne, Reiz, F. A. Wolf, Gottfried Hermann, and Friedrich Ritschl, in whose hands they have developed into a special school of philology, counting probably over a hundred representatives, many of whom have openly avowed their indebtedness to Bentley.
Prince of textual critics.
