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destroyed Carthage." The "praises" of the younger Africanus are not exclusively his personal exploits, but the glories, both ancestral and personal, of his name. Then Bentley objects to the caesura in "Non incendia Carth aginis impiae." But what of the undoubtedly genuine verse, "Dum flagrantia de torquet ad oscula" (Odes II. xii. 25)? "The preposition de," he replies, "is, as it were, separated from the verb torquet-not being a native part of that word." This might seem a bold plea; but it shows his knowledge. In old Latin inscriptions the preposition and the rest of the word are often disjoinedfor instance, IN VICTO could stand for INVICTO: and Bentley's principle would apply to Horace's "Arcanique fides prodiga per lucidior vitro" (Odes 1. xviii. 16). If, however, Carthaginis has not the privilege of a compound, it may have that of a proper name. The presence of a proper name has been urged in excuse of "Mentemque lymphatlam Mareotico" (Od. 1. xxxvii. 14)," Spectandus in certamine Martio" (Od. Iv. xiv. 17). Bentley does not notice this ground of defence. Finally, he rejects "Non incendia Carthaginis impiae" as a verse of "manifestly monkish spirit and colour."

Bentley was the first modern editor who followed the best ancient authorities in calling the Odes Carmina, and not Odae, the Satires Sermones, and not Satirae. In his preface he endeavours to settle the chronological order of Horace's writings. Previous Horatian critics-as Faber, Dacier, Masson had aimed at dating separate poems. Bentley maintains-rightly, no doubt that the poems were originally published, as we have them, in whole books. He further assumes-with much less probability --that Horace composed in only one style at a time, first writing satires; then iambics (the "Epodes"); then the

Odes-of which book Iv. and the Carmen Saeculare came between the two books of Epistles. Bentley's method is too rigid. He argues from the internal evidence too much as if a poet's works were the successive numbers of a newspaper. Yet here, too-though some of his particular views are arbitrary or wrong-he laid down the main lines of a true scheme.

Bentley's Horace immediately brought out half a dozen squibs-none of them good-and one or two more serious attacks. John Ker, a school-master, assailed Bentley's Latinity in four Letters (1713); and some years later the same ground was taken by Richard Johnson-who had been a contemporary of Bentley's at Cambridge, and was now master of Nottingham School-in his "Aristarchus Anti-Bentleianus" (1717). The fact is that Bentley wrote Latin as he wrote English—with racy vigour, and with a wealth of trenchant phrases; but he was not minutely Ciceronian. The two critics were able to pick some holes. One of Bentley's slips was amusing; he promises the readers of his Horace that they will find purity of idiom in his Latin notes-and calls it sermonis puritatem—which happens not to be pure Latin. In 1721 a rival Horace was published by Alexander Cunningham, a Scottish scholar of great learning and industry. His emendations are sometimes execrable, but often most ingenious. His work is marred, however, by a mean spite against Bentley, whom he constantly tries to represent as a plagiarist or a blunderer-and who ignored him.

The first edition of Bentley's Horace (1711) went off rapidly, and a second was required in 1712. This was published by the eminent firm of Wetstein at Amsterdam. Paper and printing were cheaper there-an important point when the book was to reach all scholars. Thomas

Bentley, the nephew, brought out a smaller edition of the work in 1713, dedicating it with logical propriety-to Harley's son. The line in the Dunciad (11. 205)-"Bentley his mouth with classic flatt'ry opes "-is fixed by Warburton on Thomas Bentley, "a small critic, who aped his uncle in a little Horace." Among other compliments, Bentley received one or two which he could scarcely have anticipated. Le Clerc, whom he had just been lashing so unmercifully, wrote a review in the Bibliothèque Choisie which was at once generous and judicious. Bentley also received a graceful note from Atterbury, now Dean of Christ Church. "I am indebted to you, Sir," says the Dean, "for the great pleasure and instruction I have received from that excellent performance; though at ye same time I cannot but own to you the uneasyness I felt when I found how many things in Horace there were, which, after thirty years' acquaintance with him, I did not understand." There is much of Horace in that.

CHAPTER IX.

OTHER CLASSICAL STUDIES. TERENCE.-MANILIUS.

HOMER.

"His

ONE of Bentley's few intimate friends in the second half of his life was Dr. Richard Mead, an eminent physician, and in other ways also a remarkable man. After graduating at the University of Padua—which, as Cambridge men will remember, had been the second alma mater of Dr. John Caius-Dr. Mead began practice at Stepney in 1696. He rose rapidly to the front rank of his profession, in which he stood from about 1720 to his death in 1754. Dibdin describes him with quaint enthusiasm. house was the general receptacle of men of genius and talent, and of everything beautiful, precious, or rare. His curiosities, whether books, or coins, or pictures, were laid open to the public; and the enterprising student and experienced antiquary alike found amusement and a courteous reception. He was known to all foreigners of intellectual distinction, and corresponded both with the artisan and the potentate."

In 1721--Bentley being in London at the time-Mead gave him a copy of a Greek inscription just published by the accomplished antiquary, Edmund Chishull, who had been chaplain to the English Factory at Smyrna. A marble slab, about 8 feet 7 inches high and 18 inches broad,

had been found in the Troad. It is now in the British Museum. This slab had supported the bust of a person who had presented some pieces of plate to the citizens of Sigeum; on the upper part, an inscription in Ionic Greek records the gifts; lower down, nearly the same words are repeated in Attic Greek, with the addition-"Esopus and his brothers made me." Bentley dashed off a letter to Mead; there had been no bust at all, he said; the two inscriptions on the slab were merely copied from two of the pieces of plate; the artists named were the silversmiths. He was mistaken. The true solution is clearly that which has since been given by Kirchhoff. The Ionic inscription was first carved by order of the donor, a native of the Ionic Proconnesus; the lower inscription was added at Sigeum, where settlers had introduced the Attic dialect, on its being found that the upper inscription could not easily be read from beneath; Esopus and his brothers were the stone-cutters. Yet Bentley's letter incidentally throws a flash of light on a point not belonging to its main subject. A colossal statue of Apollo had been dedicated in Delos by the islanders of Naxos. On the base are these words: ΟΥΤΟΛΙΘΟΕΜΙΑΝΔΡΙΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΟ ΣΦΕΛΑΣ. Bentley read this (r)ofυτοῦ [=ταὐτοῦ] λίθου εἴμ', ἀνδριὰς καὶ τὸ opéλaç, an iambic trimeter (with hiatus): "I am of the same stone, statue and pedestal."

After this instance of rashness, it is right to record a striking success. In 1728 Chishull published an inscription from copies made by the travellers Spon and Wheeler. Bentley, in a private letter, suggested some corrections; but Chishull, who saw the criticisms without knowing the author, demurred to some of them, thinking that the copies could not have been so inexact. Some years later the stone itself was brought to England. It then appeared

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