proved frequently of great service to their cause, but, at other times, did more mischief than good; for, at the least touch of offence, and often without any at all, he would, like a wounded elephant, convert it against his leaders. Such, at this juncture, was the disposition of Bentley; grieved to see the enemy prevail, and dissatisfied with everybody's conduct but his own. He humbly gave the modern generals to understand, that he conceived, with great submission, that they were all a pack of rogues, and fools, and sons of whores, and d-d cowards, and confounded loggerheads, and illiterate whelps, and nonsensical scoundrels; that, if himself had been constituted general, those presumptuous dogs,* the ancients, would, long before this, have been beaten out of the field. You, said he, sit here idle; but when I, or any other valiant modern, kill an enemy, you are sure to seize the spoil. But I will not march one foot against the foe till you all swear to me, that whomsoever I take or kill, his arms I shall quietly possess. Bentley having spoken thus, Scaliger, bestowing him a sour look, Miscreant prater! said he, eloquent only in thine own eyes, thou railest without wit, or truth, or discretion. The malignity of thy temper perverteth nature; thy learning makes thee more barbarous, thy study of humanity more inhuman; thy converse among poets, more grovelling, miry, and dull. All arts of civilizing others render thee rude and untractable; courts have taught thee ill manners, and polite conversation has finished thee a pedant. Besides, a greater coward burdeneth not the army. But never despond; I pass my word, whatever spoil thou takest shall certainly be thy own; though, I hope, that vile carcass will first become a prey to kites and worms.

* Vid. Homer. de Thersite.-Original.

Bentley durst not reply; but, half choked with spleen and rage, withdrew, in full resolution of performing some great achievement. With him, for his aid and companion, he took his beloved Wotton; resolving, by policy or surprise, to attempt some neglected quarter of the ancients' army." They began their march over carcasses of their slaughtered friends; then to the right of their own forces; then wheeled northward, till they came to Aldrovandus's tomb, which they passed on the side of the declining sun. And now they arrived, with fear, toward the enemy's out-guards; looking about, if haply they

*This episode is founded upon Bentley's having subjoined to Wotton's Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, his own disquisition concerning the authenticity of the Fables of Æsop, and the Epistles of Phalaris. These authors had been highly extolled by Temple, in the following passage :

"It may, perhaps, be farther affirmed, in favour of the ancients, that the oldest books 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, both living near the same time, which was that of Cyrus and Pythagoras. As the first 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 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 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 and the sophist; and, in all the other, the tyrant and the commander."-TEMPLE, ut supra, Vol. III. p. 463.

VOL. X.

Q

might spy the quarters of the wounded, or some straggling sleepers, unarmed, and remote from the rest. As when two mongrel curs, whom native greediness and domestic want provoke and join in partnership, though fearful, nightly to invade the folds of some rich grazier, they with tails depressed, and lolling tongues, creep soft and slow; meanwhile, the conscious moon, now in her zenith, on their guilty heads darts perpendicular rays; nor dare they bark, though much provoked at her refulgent visage, whether seen in puddle by reflection, or in sphere direct; but one surveys the region round, while the other scouts the plain, if haply to discover, at distance from the flock, some carcass half devoured, the refuse of gorged wolves, or ominous ravens. So marched this lovely, loving pair of friends, nor with less fear and circumspection, when, at a distance, they might perceive two shining suits of armour hanging upon an oak, and the owners not far off, in a profound sleep. The two friends drew lots, and the pursuing of this adventure fell to Bentley; on he went, and, in his van, Confusion and Amaze, while Horror and Affright brought up the rear. As he came near, behold two heroes of the ancients' army, Phalaris and Æsop, lay fast asleep: Bentley would fain have despatched them both, and, stealing close, aimed his flail at Phalaris's breast.* But then the

* Bentley united the question concerning Phalaris with the debate about ancient and modern learning, by the following Proemium, as he calls it, addressed to Wotton, and levelled against Sir William Temple, being the telum imbelle which he is presently represented in the text as launching against that ally of the ancient cause:

"Sir, I remember that, discoursing with you upon this passage of Sir W. T., (which I have here set down,) I happened to say, That, with all deference to so great an authority, and under a just awe of so sharp a censure, I believe it might even be demonstrated that the Epistles of Phalaris are spurious, and that

goddess Affright interposing, caught the modern in her icy arms, and dragged him from the danger she foresaw; both the dormant heroes happened to turn at the same instant, though soundly sleeping, and busy in a dream. For Phalaris* was just that minute dreaming how a most vile poetaster had lampooned him, and how he had got him roaring in his bull. And Æsop dreamed, that, as he and the ancient chiefs were lying on the ground, a wild

we have nothing now extant of Æsop's own composing. This casual declaration of my opinion, by the power of that long friendship that has been between us, you improved into a promise, that I would send you my reasons in writing, to be added to the new edition of your book; believing it, as I suppose, a considerable point in the controversy you are engaged in. For, if it once be made out that those writings your adversary so extols are supposititious, and of no very long standing, you have then his and his party's own confession, that some of the later pens have outdone the old ones in their kinds. And to others, that have but a mean esteem of the wit and style of those books, it will be a double prejudice against him in your favour, that he could neither discover the true time nor the true value of his authors. These, I imagine, were your thoughts when you engaged me to this that I am now doing. But I must take the freedom to profess, that I wrote without any view or regard to your controversy, which I do not make my own, nor presume to interpose in it. It is a subject so nice and delicate, and of such a mixt and diffuse nature, that I am content to make the best use I can of both ancients and moderns, without venturing with you upon the hazard of a wrong comparison, or the envy of a true one. That some of the oldest books are best in their kinds, the same person having the double glory of invention and perfection, is a thing observed even by some of the ancients.-Dion. Chrysost. Orat. XXXIII. p. 397. But then the authors they give this honour to are Homer and Archilochus; one the father of heroic poem, the other of epode and trochaic. But the choice of Phalaris and Æsop, as they are now extant, for the two great inimitable originals, is a piece of criticism of a peculiar complexion, and must proceed from a singularity of palate and judgment."-BENTLEY'S Dissertations upon the Epistles of Phalaris. Lond. 1777, 8, p. 3.

* This is according to Homer, who tells the dreams of those who were killed in their sleep.-H.

ass broke loose, ran about, trampling and kicking, and dunging in their faces. Bentley, leaving the two heroes asleep, seized on both their armours, and withdrew in quest of his darling Wotton.

He, in the meantime, had wandered long in search of some enterprise, till at length he arrived at a small rivulet, that issued from a fountain hard by, called, in the language of mortal men, Helicon. Here he stopped, and, parched with thirst, resolved to allay it in this limpid stream. Thrice with profane hands he essayed to raise the water to his lips, and thrice it slipped all through his fingers. Then he stooped prone on his breast, but, ere his mouth had kissed the liquid crystal, Apollo came, and, in the channel, held his shield betwixt the modern and the fountain, so that he drew up nothing but mud. For, although no fountain on earth can compare with the clearness of Helicon, yet there lies at bottom a thick sediment of slime and mud; for so Apollo begged of Jupiter, as a punishment to those who durst attempt to taste it with unhallowed lips, and for a lesson to all not to draw too deep or far from the spring.

At the fountain-head, Wotton discerned two heroes; the one he could not distinguish, but the other was soon known for Temple, general of the allies to the ancients. His back was turned, and he was employed in drinking large draughts in his helmet from the fountain, where he had withdrawn himself to rest from the toils of the war. Wotton observing him, with quaking knees, and trembling hands, spoke thus to himself: O that I could kill this destroyer of our army, what renown should I purchase among the chiefs! but to issue out against him, man against man, shield against shield, and lance against lance,* what modern of us dare? for

* Vid. Homer.-Original.