a bath of reticulated work has been discovered, together with the mouth of an aqueduct. Surrentum was a most ancient republic. It continued so, that is, to enjoy its own laws and constitution under the Emperors. Flavio. Furio. Fausto. V. C. Tribuno. Aborigini. Patrono. Ob Merita. Laborum. Suorum. 'Et. Populus. Surrentinorum, Statuan. Nobilitati. ejus. Imperatori. Cæsari. Surrentina Respublica. All Campania (Livy. Lib. 7.) submitted to the Romans, U. C. 411. M. Valerio Corvino. 3tio. A. Cornelio Cosso. Coss. The Surrentines revolted (Livy. Lib. 28.) from the Romans to Hannibal. For this revolt they were fined in a part of their territory. Notwithstanding this amercement, however, their municipal rights were untouched even as late as 375 of the Christian æra, if we may believe the following inscription. Flavio. Gratiano. Constantino Maximo Pio Respublica Surrenti:orum. Sorrento was not attacked, or injured by Alaric, who took Rome, A. D. 410. It was not less fortunate under Genseric, who began his reign, A. D. 429, and under Odoacer, &c. After Narses, the General of Justinian, had driven from Italy the last Gothic King, Teias, A. D. 552, and during his government of fifteen years, and after his introduction of Alboin, King of the Lombards, into Italy, and even after the reign of Alboin, there elapsed a long period, in which civil history has not made the least mention of Sorrento. But under the joint Emperors of the East, Basilius and Constantine, who commenced their reign, A. D. 975. Sergius 1st was chief magistrate of Surrentum. This chief magistrate, or consul, was called Fortior, from St. Matthew, ch. 20. by a quaint application (so common in that age) of a passage in the Old Latin Version, Qui vult inter vos esse Fortior, sit vestrum ultimus,' "But even at that time Sorrento is proved to have been a Republic, that is, to have enjoyed its municipal rights, by a deed, which is preserved, and which I have seen, in the monastery of Cava. "Nos Sergius, et Sergius (that is, father and son), Dei Gratiâ Duces Surrentina Civitatis offerimus vobis Domino Manso Abbati, &c. omne Dacium de omnibus Puppis, de navigiis." A third Sergius is mentioned, as present at the consecration of the Church of Casino, in company with Gisulphus, Prince of Salerno, A. D. 1071, when Michael Ducas was Emperor. This Gisulphus, with the assistance of the Norman, Robert Guiscard, conquered Sorrento. The place was unprepared. In military history, indeed, we find, that Sorrento had been previously, and repeatedly, attacked. The motive assigned for those various attacks, is the hatred which the respective assailants entertained against the Greeks. This motive, thus assigned, is a competent ground for concluding, that Sorrento remained faithful to the Eastern Empire, as the continuation, and representative of the Roman, and was, therefore, regarded as Greek. as Greek. The assailants, or besiegers, were Dukes of Benevento (Beneventum), Zothus, who began his reign, A. D. 589, Arechis, A. D. 598, Rodoald, A. D. 649, and then Sicard, under whom Sorrento endured a most severe siege, A. D. 839.. Very few archives in the archiepiscopal registry of Sorrento have survived the horrible invasion of the Saracens, under Pialy Bassano, A. D. 1558. They landed opposite the islands Sirenuse (de Galli). They laid waste the city, and whole country of Massa, and besides every species of most destructive devastation, which they exercised upon the city and territory of Sorrento, they inflicted the irreparable injury of demolishing every record, even that invaluable one, preserved in the Convent of St. John and St. Paul, and written in Lombard characters. From those very few archives which I have just mentioned, it appears, that Sorrento continued to enjoy its municipal rights, as a distinct Republic, in the year 1284. In this year, an ambassador, in the name of the Republic of Sorrento, was sent on board to Clurea, the admiral of Peter of Arragon, in order to implore his mercy. Charles, son of Charles the First of Anjou, King of Naples, had been defeated by this admiral in a recent and great naval engagement, off Capo d'Anzio (Antium), and was then his prisoner. When this Charles succeeded his father, the Republic of Sorrento ceased, and merged in the kingdom of Naples. All that has been said about the great Tasso, either as born in, or connected with, Sorrento, through his parents, is so well known, that I must forbear to repeat it, either in whole, or in part. Oxford, April, 1812. I am, Sir, Your very obedient humble servant, LIFE OF DR. BENTLEY. THIS HIS most distinguished critic and learned divine was born at a small village in the West Riding of the county of York, named Oulton, in the parish of Rothwell. His ancestors were formerly of some consideration, and had been possessed of a valuable estate at Hepenstall, in the parish of Halifax. His grandfather, James Bentley, had a command in the royal army during the civil wars; and being involved in the fate of his party, had his house plundered, his lands confiscated, and was himself imprisoned in Pontefract Castle, in which place he died. Thomas Bentley, the son of James and father of Dr. Bentley, was a blacksmith of some reputation at Oulton, where he married the daughter of Richard Willis, who had formerly been a major in the service of Charles the First. This Lady, who was a woman of a very strong understanding, taught her son Richard the accidence. It was to her father that Dr. B. was principally indebted for his education. Through him he was placed at the Grammar School at Wakefield, where his extraordinary talents soon raised him above the level of his school-fellows. On the 24th of May, 1676, he was admitted a sizar of St. John's College, Cambridge, under the tuition of a Mr. Johnson, at the very early age of fourteen years and four months. He proceeded to take the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and on the 22nd of March, 1682, stood candidate for a fellowship, and was rejected on the score of his county being full! Soon after that, he became an assistant at the Free Grammar School at Spalding. That he did not, however, continue long in that occupation, appears from his having become private tutor to the son of Dr. Stillingfleet, Dean of St. Paul's, in 1683. As some compensation for the refusal of a fellowship, he had been recommended by his college to the learned Dean, who was so far sensible of the merit of the person he had to deal with, that he gave him the choice of carrying his pupil to Cambridge or Oxford. He determined upon the latter University, principally on account of the Bodleian library, the MSS. of which he examined with the most minute attention. This paved the way to his future greatness, and laid the foundation of that critical sagacity for which he was afterwards so eminently distinguished. Being now of age, he disposed of a `small estate, which he had derived from his family, to his elder brother, and laid out the whole of the money he had received for it, in the purchase of a small but valuable library. In 1684, he took the degree of M. A. at St. John's College, Cambridge. In 1692, he was collated by Dr. Stillingfleet, who was now Bishop of Worcester, to a prebend in that church, and was made his patron's domestic chaplain. Soon after this, he was recommended by Dr. Stillingfleet and Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of Litchfield, as a fit person to open the lectures upon Mr. Boyle's foundation, in defence of natural and revealed religion. This gave the Doctor a fine opportunity of displaying his talents to the best advantage. He was well aware of this, and made a very powerful exertion. He studied deeply the whole of the Newtonic demon stration of the existence of a Deity, and took care that his sermons should benefit from it. His reputation as a preacher was consequently raised; in fact, his sermons at Boyle's lectures were universally admired. In 1693, he was made library keeper at St. James's; and in the following year arose the famous dispute between him and the Hon. Charles Boyle, with respect to the Epistles of Phalaris. Mr. Boyle, it appears, had just published an edition of these Epistles, with a Latin version and notes. The Doctor asserted that these Epistles were spurious, that they were the production of some Sophist of a much later age, and altogether a contemptible and wretched performance. Some reasons for questioning their authenticity were printed by Dr. Bentley, at the end of the second edition of Wotton's Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning. These remarks were warmly taken up by the partisans of Mr. Boyle, who immediately committed to the press an elaborate and impertinent reply, in which the Doctor was somewhat roughly handled. But this triumph was to endure but for a time: Dr. Bentley took up the matter seriously, examined the Epistles with still greater exactness, and after having taken a thorough view of the subject of discussion, gave to the world that inimitable and unrivalled piece of criticism, his Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris. From the caprice or partiality of the age, it appears that Boyle was the general favorite, and that his side of the question was thought to be the true one. The principal scholars of that day, next to Bentley, were Kuster, Baxter, and Barnes; the two former of whom had the highest opinion of the talents and learning of the Doctor. Barnes, it appears, had been roughly handled by the Doctor on account of one or two absurdities which he had fallen into in his edition of Homer. But whatever errors Barnes may have committed, we cannot but confess ourselves very much indebted to his industry and exertion. His learning was certainly more considerable than the natural prowess of his understanding. But are we on that account to allow a man no credit for having made amends by application for the defects of nature? Classical learning, however, in the age of Bentley, was very confined; and the approbation of the few who were skilled in it, was far from being sufficient to defend this performance of the Doctor, from the burlesque and petty conceit of a Swift or even of a Garth. What we particularly allude to, is the ludicrous manner in which the Doctor was satirised in the Tale of a Tub, and the illiberality shown in Dr. Garth's Dispensary; "So di'monds take a lustre from their soil, And to a Bentley 'tis we owe a Boyle.” In a style like this was it, that those "children of dirt," the punsters at Cambridge, drew the picture of the Doctor in the hands of Phalaris's attendants, who were putting him into Phalaris's bull, while the Doctor was represented exclaiming, I had rather be ROASTED than BOILED. Thus it seems, that the sense and judgment of the great body of the literary world was blinded, as it were, and bewildered by the vague ideas of two of the leading wits of the age, as they are pleased to be called. It were impossible for Dr. Bentley to have lived at a time, when the way in which he employed his talents could have met with less encouragement. One half of his contemporaries had not the means of descrying his merits, the other were unwilling to give themselves the trouble, being tight-bound and bigotted to the erroneous notions of a few. Mr. Walpole, speaking of Mr. Boyle's Phalaris, says; "This work occasioned the famous controversy with Doctor Bentley; who alone, and unworsted, sustained the attacks of the brightest geniuses in the learned world, and whose fame has not suffered by the wit to which it gave occasion." Mr. Towers, in his British Biography, expresses himself thus; "In the controversy between him (Dr. Bentley) and Mr. Boyle, the popular clamor, indeed, was in favor of the latter; but Bentley's is unquestionably a much more valuable performance than that of Boyle. The latter, considered as a mere English composition, has the advantage in point of style; and pleased the generality, by the personal satire which it contained against Dr. Bentley, who had many enemies. But Bentley had greatly the superiority with respect to just reasoning, critical sagacity, and extent of learning; and his vindication of himself also contained many shrewd and sarcastical strokes against Mr. Boyle and his performance. Much has been said in favor of Mr. Boyle, as a genteel and polite writer; and it must be confessed, that Dr. Bentley's manner was often too assuming, and that he was deficient in point of civility. But notwithstanding this, there was, perhaps, a much greater want of real candor and politeness, whatever affectation of them there might be, in the very contemptuous and unfair manner in which Dr. Bentley was treated throughout Mr. Boyle's book, than in any thing which Bentley had said against Boyle. Bentley, with all his foibles, was too respectable a character to be a proper subject of such treatment, though Swift, Garth, and Pope, have joined in countenancing the popular prejudices against him." Mr. Dodwell, a person in great repute at that time with the ChristChurch men, and who was, in conjunction with other friends of Mr. Boyle, concerned in compiling the answer to Dr. Bentley's Disser tation, was candid enough to declare, that in no volume of the same size, was he ever known to have discovered so much critical sagacity and sound learning, as in the Doctor's performance. In the eyes of literary men of the present age, the work is considered inestimable, and it is to be regretted that a volume so instructive and so indispensable in the acquirement of Greek literature, should actually be out of print. "Bentleius iu immortali istâ de Phalaridis epistolis dissertatione," &c. says Professor Porson, having occasion to quote. from this inexhaustible fund of classical information. Is it then possible to see the press of his own University looking upon this with a mere passive indifference? "O! pudor! O! magna Carthago probro sis Altior Italiæ ruinis.” In the year 1696, Mr. Bentley was created Doctor of Divinity by the University of Cambridge, and sometime after that admitted ad eundem, in the University of Oxford. In 1700 he was presented to the Mastership of Trinity College, |