1699. St. James's Park. His ever-active friend Evelyn CHAP. VI. again endeavoured to interest the Archbishop of Canterbury in favour of the measure 32. But this scheme not appearing likely to succeed, he had recourse to a different expedient, and recommended the purchase of the library for the Royal Society: here also the assistance of the King's bounty was requisite: and when we consider how many great and distinguished persons were interested in effecting this object, and particularly that the Lord Chancellor Somers was then President of the Society, we are apt to wonder that it should not have succeeded 33. But it seems H. S. E. EDVARDUS STILLINGFLEET, S. T. P. EX DECANO ECCLESIÆ PAULINE EPISCOPUS VIGORNIENSIS, NISI ET EUROPE ET LITERATI ORBIS HOSPES ES, DUM REBUS MORTALIBUS INTERFUIT, ET SANCTITATE MORUM, ET ORIS STATURÆQUE DIGNITATE, UNDIQUE VENERANdus. CUI IN HUMANIORIBUS LITERIS CRITICI, IN DIVINIS THEOLOGI, IN RECONDITA HISTORIA ANTIQUARII, IN SCIENTIIS PHILOSOPHI, IN LEGUM PERITIA JURISCONSULTI, IN CIVILI PRUDENTIA POLITICI, IN ELOQUENTIA UNIVERSI FASCES ULTRO SUBMISERUNT. MAJOR UNUS IN HIS OMNIBUS, QUAM ALII IN SINGULIS. GESTASSE INTEGRAM VISUS SIT; QUÆ TAMEN NULLOS LIBROS NOVERAT MELIORES, 32 Evelyn's Memoirs, April 29, 1699. "I dined with the Archbishop, but my business was to get him to persuade the King to purchase the late Bishop of Worcester's library; and build a place for his own library at St. James's, in the Park, the present one being too small." 33 Bentley, in a note to Evelyn, of May 3, 1699, thus opens to him the topic: "I come now to wait upon you with a request that you would meet 1699. CHAP. VI. that, in spite of such powerful interest, the claims of economy were more listened to than those of literature; and Bentley had the mortification to see this noble collection carried out of the island. It was bought by the private purse of a liberal and spirited Irish prelate, Dr. Narcissus Marsh, then newly appointed to the archbishoprick of Dublin; who devoted his purchase to the purpose of founding a public library in that metropolis 34. Bentley's victory. Bentley was now left to enjoy the triumph of his complete learning and sagacity, to which even the most averse were compelled to pay homage: and what was a still more important result of his book, he had silenced and put to shame the slanderous attacks made upon his character. Upon the various matters of this celebrated controversy, his victory was complete and final, and he was left in undisputed possession of the field. A declaration was indeed made by his adversaries of their intention to publish a complete reply to his book; but this was an empty vaunt; they felt their inability to renew the conflict upon questions of learning; and it was the course of prudence not to recall public attention to the dispute. It may be remarked, that no one of the Boylean confederacy ever again appeared before the world as a critic. Atterbury, their leader, immediately afterwards found business of a different character, a defence of the rights of the Convocation, in which he acquitted Sir Robert Southron, Sir Christopher Wren, and other friends, at Pontac's to day at dinner; to make an act of council at Gresham College, to desire our president, and the late president, to obtain a public library for the Royal Society. I beg of you not to fail us before two o'clock there.” The result of this meeting is mentioned in Evelyn's Memoirs, May 3, 1699: "At a meeting of the Royal Society I was nominated to be of the committee to wait upon the Lord Chancellor to move the King to purchase the Bishop of Worcester's library.” 34 See a letter of Archbishop Marsh, dated May 4, 1700. Letters of Eminent Persons, vol. i. p. 103. 1699. himself with signal ability: though encountered by CHAP. VI. such opponents as Wake, Kennett, and Gibson, his superiors in antiquarian learning, he established his reputation as a spirited and powerful controversialist, and was from that time looked upon as the ablest champion of the High Church party in the kingdom. logues of the Of all Bentley's enemies, Dr. King appears to King's Diahave been most severely galled by the chastisement Dead. which he experienced, and laboured to revenge himself, by turning the critic into ridicule, in his ten Dialogues of the Dead ;' which, by his own confession, he wrote to divert his spleen.' The subject of all these performances is Bentley and the controversy. His banter, though occasionally humourous, is upon the whole tiresome and palling; and the work produces the same effect as the travesty of a poem, in showing the high opinion really entertained of the original. Dr. King styles our critic Bentivoglio, a nick-name which we find adhering to him afterwards as long as he lived 35. 35 The following passage of a dialogue between Lilly and Helvicus is a favourable specimen of the civilian's banter : : "HELV. Why in such a passion, brother Lilly? "LILLY. Brother Lilly!-You make very free with me. I am none of your brother! The great Bentivoglio may indeed call me brother, since the publication of his eternal labours. He equals the Chronological Tables that I yearly published; and then he is so exact a man at the original of a Sicilian city, that, amidst never so great variety of authors, he can tell you the man who laid the first stone of it. There was not a potter in Athens, or a brazier in Corinth, but he knows when he set up, and who took out a statute of bankrupt against him. "HELV. Why this is great learning indeed! "LILLY. Why so it is, Sir. Do you know whether Thericles made glass or earthenware, or what Olympiad he lived in? "HELV. Truly, not I! But do the fortunes of Greece depend upon it? "LILLY. Thus you would encourage ignorance! My brother Bentivoglio and I have studied many years upon things of less importance, some of which I shall name to you; as, that carp and hops came into England the same year with heresy;-that the first weathercock was set up, on the tomb of Zethys and Calais, sons of Boreas, in the time of the Argonautic expedition;-that Mrs. Turner brought up the fashion of yellow starch;— CHAP. VI. 1699. The prejudices excited by party and fashion are never easily overcome. Of this fact there appears a remarkable instance in the popular opinion prevalent in England for at least fifty years, that the controversy on Phalaris was one upon which great learning and wit had been bestowed, but which after all left the point in dispute undecided. undecided. Among persons whose judgment upon such questions could be of any value, the case was different: by them the triumph of Dr. Bentley was deemed as complete, as his learning, wit, and ingenuity were admirable and it was not long before he experienced a signal proof of the impression created in his favour. that the Sybarites first laid rose-cakes and lavender among their linen;— that Sardanapalus was the inventor of cushions, which never before this last century have been improved into easy chairs, by the metamorphosis of cast mantuas and petticoats, to the ruin of chamber-maids.—And yet we thought our time well spent, I must tell you. "HELV. Are any of these things in Usher's 'Annals,' or Simpson's < Chronicon?' "LILLY. Perhaps not. But we stand upon their shoulders, and therefore see things with greater exactness. Perhaps never man came to the same pitch of chronology as the much esteemed Bentivoglio. He has gotten the true standard by which to judge of the Grecian time: He knows the age of any Greek word unless it be in the Greek Testament:' and can tell you the time a man lived in, by reading a page of his book, as easily as I could have told an oyster-woman's fortune when my hand was crost with a piece of silver. "HELV. This is admirable! Why then, it seems, words have their chronology, and phrases their rise and fall, as well as the Four Monarchies. "LILLY. Very right; let Bentivoglio but get a sentence of Greek in his mouth, and turn it once or twice upon his tongue; and he as well knows the growth of it, as a vintner does Burgundy from Madeira.”— King's Works, Dialogue VII. vol. i. p. 161. CHAPTER VII. Bentley made Master of Trinity College, Cambridge-History of the College -Its great fame and prosperity-Its decline-The probable causes— Bentley's appointment unpopular-The Duke of Gloucester-Bentley's first step upon his admission—Repairs of the Master's Lodge-Bentley elected Vice-Chancellor-His Marriage-Vindicates the rights of the University-A Greek Archbishop created D.D.-Address to the King— Ludolf Kuster-His edition of Suidas-Bentley made Archdeacon of Ely -Member of Convocation-University Press-General ElectionBentley undertakes to publish Horace-Death of Grævius-Elections in Trinity College-The Master's regulations-Measures of disciplineCare of the College Library-Graduates in Divinity — Dissention among the Fellows-Declamations-Offence given by the Master-Expensive repairs-New Staircase-College Preachers-Sequel of the Phalaris controversy-Publications of Atterbury-Dodwell-Swift-Wotton. 1700. 1696. WE have already noticed that during the life-time of CHAP.VII. Queen Mary, the Church preferment in the gift of the Crown was generally left to her disposal. Soon after the loss of his Queen, King William was induced to appoint a Commission, consisting of the six most distinguished prelates on the Bench, who were to recom- April 7, mend fit persons, to supply all vacant bishopricks, deaneries, and other preferments, as well as headships and professorships of the two Universities, in the Royal patronage. The persons invested with this trust were the Archbishops the Archbishops Tenison and Sharp, Bishops Lloyd of Coventry and Lichfield, Burnet of Sarum, Stillingfleet of Worcester, and Patrick of Ely; after Stillingfleet's death, another Commission was issued, substituting in his place Moore the Bishop of Norwich'. Upon the vacancy of the deanery of 1 The copy of this Commission, dated May 9, 1699, is given at length in Le Neve's Lives of the Protestant Archbishops, p. 247. No Commission of this nature has been issued by any monarch since King William. |