He was never so profound a thinker, as he was ingenious, subtle, and acute. Though his philosophies all were over-topped by his sweet humanities,* yet American students may well cherish his memory, and keep his Alciphron-if not his Hylas and Philonous-upon their book-rolls. A Scholar. It is certain that in your forays into the literature of these times — if made with any earnestness — you will come upon the name of Dr. Bentley ;† if nowhere else, then attached to critical footnotes at the bottom of books. His demolition of the claims, long maintained by an older generation of scholars, respecting certain Epistles of Phalaris, commanded attention *One of his last publications was, "Siris: a chain of Philosophical Reflections and inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar-water." And it is remarkable that its arguments and teeming illustrations have not been laid hold of by our modern venders of Tar-soap. +Richard Bentley, b. 1662; d. 1742. Native of Oulton, Yorkshire. Was first Boyle Lecturer, 1692; Master of Trinity, 1700; Works, edited by Dyce, London, 1836 (only 3 vols. issued of a proposed 8 vol. edition). Life, by Jacob Mähly, Leipsic, 1868. at an early stage of his career, and showed ability to cross swords, in a scholastic and bitter way, with such men as Atterbury and Boyle; and — if need were with such others as Sir William Temple and Dr. Swift. As early as 1700 he had come to the mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge (where a portrait of him by Thornhill now hangs in the Master's Lodge), a proud position-made prouder by his large hospitalities. He had a sensible wife, courteous "for two" as many scholars' wives have need to be and two daughters; one of whom inheriting the father's sharp tongue, made a good many young fellows of the college sing; and made some of them sigh too marrying at last a certain young Cumberland, who became the father of Richard Cumberland, the poet and dramatist.* Some small chronicler tells us of his preference for port over claret; indeed he loved all intense things, rather than things diluted, and was inaccessible to those finer, milder, delicater graces *B. 1732; d. 1811. Best known by his Memoirs, 1806; among his plays is Fulse Impressions, in which appears Scud, the forerunner of Dickens's Alfred Jingle. whether of wine or poetry—which ripen under long reposeful workings. I spoke of a portrait of him in the Master's Lodge; there was another in Pope's Dunciad-not so flattering: "The mighty scholiast, whose unwearied pains -Lib. iv., 211 et seq. 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. One wishing to see his slap-dash manner and his amazing command of authorities should read the Dissertation on Phalaris; not a lovable man surely, but prince of all schoolmastery lore and how rarely we love the schoolmaster! 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). 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. Two Doctors. We approach a doctor now as mild and gentle as Bentley was irritable and pugnacious; a man not * All along the foot-notes in a great Quarto of the Paradise Lost (London, 1732) Bentley's critical pyrotechnics flame, and flare; and he closes a bristling preface with this droll caveat; -"I made [these] notes extempore, and put them to the Press as soon as made; without any Apprehension of growing leaner by Censures, or plumper by Commendations." often enrolled among literary veterans; treated with scorn, maybe, by the professional critics; and yet this name now brought to your attention is I think, tenderly associated with New Englanders' earliest recollections of rhyme or verse; and it is specially these literary firstlings of the memory that it is well for us to trace and hold in hand. Let us listen for a moment to that old cradle hymn : “Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber, Holy angels guard thy bed; Heavenly blessings without number Gently falling on thy head." How the quaint, simple melody lingers yet, coming from far-away times, when it drifted over hundreds of New England homes, which as yet knew not Pinafore nor Mr. Sankey! It is of Dr. Watts's* familiar name that I speak he was the son of a lodging-house keeper in Southampton- in which city a Watts memorial Hall was dedicated as late as 1875. Being a dis * Isaac Watts, b. 1674; d. 1748. Hora Lyricæ : Memoir by Southey (vol. ix., Sacred Classics: London, 1834). Lowndes (Bib. Manual) says, that up to 1864, there were sold annually 50,000 copies of Watts's Hymns. |