at the end of our Journal, and thus making us the vehicle of propagating invective against ourselves. Fortune favours the bold: such was Mr. Murray's confidence in the fairness of our strictures, that he appears to have felt no objection to let all the world see what could be urged against them; and, accordingly, throughout the whole extent of our circulation,' Mr. Valpy's accusation of us was wafted.'

It is hard to feel angry with so much cleverness and spirit: and had Mr. Valpy confined himself to an attack upon our article, we should have suffered him to enjoy the success of his device without molestation; but he has ventured to mix with his complaint, some unfounded and unjustifiable reflections on the Rev. Dr. Blomfield, a scholar whose name can never be mentioned but with respect by every lover of sound literature and honourable principles. To this gentleman, therefore, against whom we have been made a vehicle for propagating calumny, an ample and a public apology becomes indispensably due. But as to the mode of effecting this, a little difficulty at first presented itself: Mr. Valpy's paper could not be noticed as a publication: it was sent abroad in our own wrapper. We were relieved, however, from this embarrassment by his brother Editor, Mr. Edmund Henry Barker, who having already written a book' upon the same subject, had given us a fair vantage ground. As this book, whose portentous title we have prefixed to this article, contains the same allegations and the same arguments as Mr. Valpy has put forth-accompanied indeed with more personalities and foul language, we are enabled to reply to both the complainants at once. We shall accordingly proceed to rescue this performance from the fate to which the writings of Mr. Barker are naturally destined; reminding him at the same time, that it owes this distinction to no merits of its own, but solely to the peculiar operations of his colleague.

We must first give the reader Mr. Barker's own explication of his title-page.

The following Book derives its title, Aristarchus Anti-Blomfieldianus, from a celebrated work published by Richard Johnson, the Master of Nottingham School, in 1717-8, called:

And before the reader has finished the perusal of it, he will in all probability be satisfied that, if he has to deal with a person of erudition infinitely inferior in every respect to Dr. Bentley, he has to behold errours as gross and as numerous, as those pointed out by Richard Johnson, and he will find matter for deep reflection in observing that the errours are not merely slips of the pen, but aberrations of the heart.' -Preface, p. v.

We shall at present only remark, that the title of Aristarchus Anti-Bentleianus was assumed by Johnson, in allusion to the practice which had long prevailed, both among friends and enemies, of giving to Dr. Bentley the title of Aristarchus; as well as to the direct pretensions advanced by himself in the Preface to the very book which was the subject of that criticism: 'Est et peracri insuper judicio opus; est sagacitate et ȧyxia; est, ut de Aristarcho olim prædicabant, divinandi quadam peritia et parrix, &c.' Praf. ad Hor. That any such pretensions were made in the paper which has excited all this fury of resentment in the breast of Mr. Barker, will hardly be contended. But we must beg our readers to bear in mind, that he undertakes in his outset to detect in our article errors as gross and as numerous as those pointed out by Richard Johnson in Bentley's Horace. Now, Johnson promised to convict Bentley of error in no less than 136 instances; and though he was far from making good his vaunt, yet in a considerable proportion of those cases it must be confessed that he succeeded. What success his professed imitator E. H. Barker, O. T. N. meets with, the reader shall speedily have an opportunity of judging.

The object of his attack is fixed in the next paragraph:

"The fact of the Quarterly Review of the New Greek Thesaurus having been written by the Rev. C. J. Blomfield is so notorious, and the internal evidence of his composition, which the Review itself supplies, is so powerful, that it would be a mere waste of words to attempt a formal proof of it; and it would be equally idle to shew that the Reviewer could only have had an improper motive for writing the Review. He is the avowed personal enemy of the editors of the New Greek Thesaurus, and could not undertake the anonymous review of their work without the grossest violation of common decorum and without the strongest suspicions of private malignity, and yet he has the unparalleled effrontery, the egregious and disgusting hypocrisy, to talk of "the impartiality of his criticism." (p. 348.)-Preface, pp. v. vii.

We here see that the fact, of our article having been written by this gentleman, is made to rest entirely upon the authority of Mr. Barker; who, however, after saying that it would be a mere waste of words to attempt a formal proof of it,' does devote a very large portion of his publication to this very attempt;' and that too by a mode of demonstration never invented before his time.

He

He begins by assuming the fact as an axiom: and then argues that his assumption is correct, from instances of supposed coincidence and resemblance of expression between our Review, and numerous other anonymous writings, in this and other journals, which he also assumes on no authority to have been written by Dr. Blomfield: but with the greater part of which that gentleman had, to our certain knowledge, not the slightest concern! After such a specimen of his discernment, and his power of reasoning, it may appear superfluous to say more upon this topic. We cannot be supposed very anxious to disclaim the co-operation of a scholar, whose talents and learning would reflect lustre upon our publication; and Mr. Barker can hardly expect us to gratify his curiosity, by either admitting or denying the point for which he contends. That he may not, however, suspect us of any wish to shelter the victim of his resentment, we will, without making any admission, suppose for the sake of argument, that he has been truly informed of a fact which he has so lamentably failed in proving that Dr. Blomfield was the author of our review of Stephens's Thesaurus. What provocation can be found for the virulent language with which we find him assailed? or what apology can be made to the world for such an outrage upon the decencies of civilized society? The article in our Journal is answerable for nothing beyond its own contents—and therein Mr. Barker has been able to detect no foul language, no opprobrious accusation. But Dr. Blomfield, he asserts, is the avowed personal enemy of the editors' of the Thesaurus. Where such an avowal' was ever made, and upon what he founds such an improbable assertion, he does not tell us and until we have something more than Mr. Barker's assurance, we must continue to believe this an untruth, the sheer effusion of passion and mortified vanity. Dr. Blomfield's character is by this time sufficiently known to the world, not only as a scholar, whose acquirements reflect honour on his country, but as a learned, sensible, and conscientious divine, exemplary in the discharge of the duties of a pastor, and remarkably attentive to every moral and Christian obligation. A character can hardly be imagined more opposite to that which the enraged Aristarch attempts to fix upon him:

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'Mr. Blomfield appears to have derived the black blood in his veins from that blood of Prometheus, which flowed to the ground, as the vulrture preyed upon his liver, and from which sprang the herba promethea, described to be capable of producing antipathy and hatred.'-Pref. p. xi.

We will not disgust our readers with quoting any more paragraphs of this description, which compose the greater part of Mr. Barker's pamphlet, but will extract at once a few specimens of the epithets bestowed on Dr. Blomfield, and the accusations preferred

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preferred against him: he charges him with Consummate arrogance and impertinence-The foulest malice-Utter disregard to truth-Gross falsehood-Unblushing impertinence-Buse and mercenary views-Unparalleled effrontery-Egregious and disgusting hypocrisy-Foul, secret and desperate malignity—Vulgar and coarse abuse-Low minded spite-turpitude-Statements absolutely-designedly untrue-An understanding crooked— A heart envenomed-A pen full of gall,' &c. &c. &c.

Such is the language, which in all its varieties of combination, pervades every page of Aristarchus Anti-Blomfieldianus! If any thing can possibly aggravate the indecency of this exhibition, it is, that Mr. Barker has dedicated the whole to Earl Spencer, a nobleman, who from his exalted and dignified character, as well as his correct taste and love for genuine literature, is, of all persons living, the most likely to be scandalized and disgusted by such effusions from the mouth of a person pretending to the name of a scholar. This gratuitous insult is the more audacious, as it could hardly be unknown to the dedicator, that it was his Lordship who first distinguished and rewarded the merits of Dr. Blomfield, by preferring him, when a very young man, to a benefice in his patronage.

It is with regret we acknowledge that Mr. Barker can quote great names as precedents for debating, with personality aud invective, questions, which learning and taste alone ought to have decided. But he has contrived to adopt only the discreditable part of the example: and if he obtains a notice among the records of Fame, it must be from having surpassed every commentator and critic in the quantity and quality of his abuse. From the writings of his precursors in this art, of Peter Burmann, of John Cornelius de Pauw, and of his pretended prototype, Richard Johnson, some amusement and some information may be derived, to compensate in part for their scurrility: but in our self-styled Aristarchus, not a sentence can be detected either of utility or of entertainment, except where laughter is excited by his own extravagance he is a perfect male Öbloquy, with whom base' and malignant' supply an answer to every thing. The sentences comprising his wrathful epithets are never pointed, and seldom, indeed, clothed in common propriety of diction; and when he is disposed to be eloquent, his language, far from bearing the least vestige of scholarship, would hardly be tolerated in a club of apprentices and man-milliners:

The gutta serena of praise was not big enough to hide the cataract of censure. p. 70.

Mr. Blomfield may justly claim to himself the merit of having with the spirit of an Indian barbarian conceived the right of revenge to de

volve

volve to him as the literary representative of the deceased, and of having presented the red hatchet of war instead of bearing before him the sacred calumet of peace.'-p. 53.

'No wonder that Mr. Blomfield should labour to prove Eschylus to have been a fisherman, when he has himself adopted the language, and followed the trade of Billingsgate.'—p. 111.

But the reader must be impatient to hear the grounds upon which Mr. Barker builds his charges against our critique, and against the moral character of its presumed author; and be looking with a mixture of anxiety and horror for the disclosure of enormities which can have provoked such unexampled denunciations. We will proceed to satisfy his curiosity, by specifying every particular objection and complaint; distinguishing, however, two topics which Mr. Barker jumbles together-his reply to the review, and his attack on the motives and the character of the supposed writer. Our readers will perceive, what, it seems, the Aristarchus cannot, that, even were his assumptions respecting Dr. Blomfield allowed, still, before he has proved the article to contain unfair or exaggerated statements, all his declamation upon the hostility and malignity, and other bad passions of that individual, are totally unavailable for his purpose. It will be recollected, that the review of Stephens's Thesaurus in our 44th Number, was so long and full, that had its statements been untrue, or its criticism unsound, ample room must have been afforded for refutation. The passages of which Aristarchus complains, are extremely few; and, comparatively speaking, so unimportant, that were they all struck out, the general effect of the article would not be in the least altered, nor would the editors of Stephens have any reason to congratulate themselves.

The first topic of animadversion is the inconsistent practice of the Thesaurus respecting abbreviations of proper names, which was noticed by us, but in the gentlest terms of censure: and this point, which appears, at the utmost, secondary and even trivial, he picks out from the midst of our strictures to place in the front of his battle. Our observation is,

Nor do we find much fault with the inconstancy observable in the abbreviations of proper names; it is, however, a blemish to the work. Thus the same man is at one time Kuster. and at another Kust. Xenophon, Xenoph. and Xen. Hemster. and Hemst. Plutarch. and Plut. Hesych. and Hes. This, we suppose, is attributable to the different MSS. from which the numerous additions are taken; but it indicates precipitancy on the part of the publishers.'-vol. xxii. p. 336.

Mr. Barker distinctly admits the fact to be as the reviewer states,' but denies the inference: The truth is,' says he,' that the discrepancy results rather from intention than from accident.

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Whether