A LETTER To the RIGHT REVEREND The Lord Bishop of O----d. [Price One Shilling.]
A LETTER To the RIGHT REVEREND The Lord Bishop of O----d. CONTAINING Some Animadversions upon a Character given of the late Dr. BENTLEY, IN A LETTER, from a late Professor in the University of
Oxford,
to the Right Rev. Author of the Divine Legation of MOSES demonstrated.
"
Jam parce sepulto.
"
LONDON:
Printed for J. WILKIE, in St. Paul's Church-Yard. 1767.
A LETTER To the RIGHT REVEREND The Lord Bishop of O----d.
My LORD,
A LETTER, subscribed by a
late Professor in the University of Oxford,
and addressed to a learned Prelate now living, fell into my hands no earlier than a few days ago. A very unexpected character, which is therein given of the literary taste and genius of the late Dr.
Bentley,
has strongly tempted me to address a few observations to the Writer of that Letter; and as I shall hope to do this with all becoming civility and decorum I presume the
Lord Bishop of O-----
will make no scruple to avow any opinions, which a
late Professor in that University
thought fit to advance.
In the correspondence I have now commenced with your Lordship, it is far from my meaning to attempt at measuring weapons with you in the science of letters; I have much too humble a sense of my own powers, and too high a respect for your Lordship's, to entertain such a design. It is an appeal to your candour as a gentleman, not an attack upon your capacity as a scholar, that I meditate. I am willing you should enjoy, whole and unenvied, all the same you can fairly and honestly acquire; but I would wish your Lordship to believe that no credit is to be gained, either with the present age or posterity, by attempting to demolish the reputation of another.
Add to this, that such conduct is, in your particular, grossly impolitic. You at present enjoy a temporary repose; hostilities seem for a while suspended between your
Right Reverend Correspondent
and you; cultivate the time; examine and improve your resources; conciliate to yourself new allies, rivet and confirm your old ones; and imitate those few wise and provident princes, who, knowing the short duration of all public felicity, employ the intervals of peace in preparations for a future war.
You will probably find employment enough for all your talents, when the great champion, whom you have so insultingly provoked, shall enter the lists against you; the time will certainly come; and amongst the virtues, which you will have occasion to exercise in that day of trial, 'tis well, my Lord, if repentance be not found to have a place.
The zealous affection, which you, my Lord, so well know how to express for your friends, must excuse the warmth with which I interest myself in the defence of mine. If honour calls upon us to resent an aspersion upon an absent friend, yet living; something more than honour, piety engages us to vindicate the dead. Did your Lordship, when you struck with such rancour at Dr.
Bentley,
flatter yourself that he had outlived all those private and tender alliances, which bind and connect mankind together, and that his fame lay at the mercy of every free booter? Far from it; the learned and the candid of all nations are the friends of his fame; and no inconsiderable number still survive, whom his private worth and virtues have left under lasting impressions of affection. The former order of men will probably think you have discovered no great tokens of discernment in this invective; or, favouring your judgment, will think your temper not altogether free from some small portion of envy and asperity. As for the latter class of people, personalities, my Lord, inflame mankind to that degree, that 'tis well if they leave you even the small shred of reputation, which you have allowed to Dr.
Bentley.
Recollect, my Lord, the warmth, the piety, with which you remonstrated against
Bishop W----
's treatment of your father in a passage of his
Julian
:
Page 128.
"
It is not in behalf of myself that I expostulate; but of one, for whom I am much more concerned, that is — my Father.
"
These are your Lordship's words; amiable, affecting expression! instructive lesson of filial devotion! Alas, my Lord, that you, who was thus sensible to the least speck, which fell upon the reputation of your father, should be so inveterate against the fame of one, at least as eminent, and perhaps no less dear to his family.
For my own part, much as I reverence great and learned men, in my poor estimation, one generous sentiment, one benevolent emanation of the heart, is of more value and respect than all the unimpassioned productions of the understanding; I therefore cannot help holding
your Correspondent
in higher esteem for the generous and candid manner in which he atones for this offence, than for all the vast fund of erudition, which he has displayed in the eyes of the world, to the singular annoyance (as it should seem) of your Lordship, but to the general use and information of all mankind besides.
He tells you, that he knew not that the
Pages 132, 133.
Mr. L. whom he had treated with disrespect in one of his notes, was your father; that this circumstance amply justified you for every thing he complained of relative to your unkind usage of him in your prelections; in short, that he owed so much to your piety, which he considered as really edifying, that he would strike out that note against your father the first opportunity. Indeed, the whole turn of the letter, from which these expressions are selected, carries such an air of candour and polite acknowledgment, that I am surprised your Lordship, with this transaction fresh in your memory, should not have considered, when you was thus unhandsomely treating Dr.
Bentley
's character, that it was possible some one might be found, under the same predicament, or with the same feelings towards him, that you had experienced towards Mr. L. There is a rule, my Lord, in the Christian doctrine, which I dare say you have frequently recommended to other people, that on this occasion would have been peculiarly useful to yourself. All that can now be done is, that, as you have thought fit to copy
your learned Correspondent
in the least amiable part of his character, you should strive to resemble him in his more shining features; and learn of him, that even faults may be made graceful by an ingenuous manner of atoning for them. As there are some distempers, which, by being skilfully cured, leave the constitution more vigorous and healthy, than if it had never been attacked by them; so there seem to be certain flaws in the moral conduct of some men, which, being well and effectually repaired, set off the character with greater lustre and advantage than it could have appeared with, had such imperfections never been discovered. Was I worthy to prescribe to your Lordship, the task would be no very hard one that I should set you; it would be only to give your real sentiments of Dr.
Bentley
's merit; and I am persuaded they would turn out the most complete recantation of what you have now been pleased to amuse us with, that could be wished for.
I have entered thus circumstantially into this matter, not with a design to aggravate your Lordship's offence, but to extenuate my own. Censure which falls from you, my Lord, falls from a great height; especially when the defenceless object, upon whom it is directed, is unhappily laid so low.
You will now permit me to transcribe the sentence of which I complain. I find it in your 80th page; I mention the page, because for the allusion it bears to any part of your subject, it might as well be sought for in any other leaf of the book. The paragraph is addressed to
Bishop W-----,
and runs thus;—
"And here more opportunely for the illustration of what I am saying, than for your own purpose, you introduce
the incomparable Bentley,
as standing in the foremost rank of modern critics; of grammatical and verbal critics I agree with you; he could judge with great penetration of the age of an author by the dialect, the phrase, and the matter; by Thericlean cups and Sicilian talents; this was his proper sphere of science, and in this he excelled: but in matters of pure taste, a fine discernment of the different characters of composition, colours of style, and manners of thinking; of interior beauties and excellencies of writing, in regard to all this, what was he?
Unus caprimulgus, aut fossor.
What then has he to do here?"
—Ay, what indeed? Your Lordship has asked a question, which I really cannot easily resolve; and, but that you have prevented me in it, the very question I should have taken the liberty of putting to your Lordship.
For what answer can we give? Is it to be thought that you conceive this sovereign contempt of Dr.
Bentley
's taste and genius from an acquaintance with his works? with his
It is proposed to publish a new edition of these works in a short time.
original works I mean; for, although a great and elegant genius will break forth, even when employed in the under work of criticism and exposition, (as witness your Lordship's learned labours on the Hebrew poesy), yet undoubtedly it is in compositions of an original sort, where the proper estimate of the genius of an author is to be formed. Let me then with all due respect demand of your Lordship, from which of the original productions of Dr.
Bentley
's pen is it that you have collected these very unfavourable sentiments concerning him? In which of his labours have you traced the brutal ignorance of a
goatherd,
the clownish stupidity of a
hedger and ditcher?
Indeed, my good Lord, these are hard words; worse by one half than you bestowed upon the prophet
Ezra,
who escaped your satire with the appellation only of a
semi-barbarian.
Could you have given worse language to a country curate at a visitation? Is your Lordship sure that these expressions are perfectly elegant and perfectly true? are they fit for one scholar, one gentleman, one Christian divine to bestow upon another? do they give us any impression of your Lordship's manners, of your wit, or of your judgment? The virtues of your heart, my Lord, and the purity of your morals, will support your character with the present age; but it must be the productions of your understanding, that are to establish your reputation with posterity: How therefore could you think of transmitting to after-ages an opinion, which mankind will be sure to charge to the error either of your head, or of your heart? What provocation can you have received from Dr.
Bentley
's genius, that you should liken it to that of boors and peasants? I don't know, my Lord, what kind of licence you men of learning take in speaking of each other; but we, who act in common life, and have common understandings, stare at such familiarities; a certain cautious principle (which your Lordship seems to hold in disregard) called prudence; and a small degree of worldly virtue (in which your Lordship, 'tis plain, on some occasions, does not abound) called good-manners, teach us to smother and repress these sallies of spleen and ill-nature; if not from natural principle, yet from the dread of that humiliating correction, which expressions of so offensive a nature would be apt to incur. These, my Lord, are amongst the checks and restraints that civilize society. I don't mean to apply them to the case in question; I believe, and, by your Lordship's example, am convinced, that other rules and principles obtain in the republic of letters; every thing there breathes an unrestrained freedom of manners; affronts are mutually interchanged, and challenges are publicly given and accepted by the gravest and most respectable characters: nothing, however, shall persuade me that this is not ridiculous and unbecoming. I cannot see
Professors,
dignified Divines and
Bishops
tilting at each other, without a blush: 'tis this unpardonable petulancy that makes the company of men of learning so little sought after; it reduces literary science to the rank of a mechanical art; when the scholar is found to give way to as many little mean detracting insinuations in his profession, as a
Fidler,
or a
Taylor
does in his. For my own part, such is my prejudice against envy and ill-nature, and so great is the respect that I bear to candour and complaisance, that, altho' I have your Lordship's example before my eyes, still I cannot be persuaded that invidious aspersions, lessening comparisons, and calumnious railings, are any proofs of liberal education, or of an elegant improved understanding; and this I can tell your Lordship, that if you had not expressly, ay, and in capital letters, asserted
Page 64.
, THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD to have been the place of your education; the seat where you first sacrificed to the muses and to the graces; it might really, to future ages, have been just matter of doubt, in what one spot of this globe your Lordship had imbibed those elegant and friendly manners, which run through the whole of your disputations with Bishop
W . . .,
and are particularly marked out in the character you have given of Dr.
Bentley
; a character in which you have apparently a double intent; not only to undeceive the world with respect to any false opinions we might have taken up concerning his understanding, but to give us at the same time a just impression of your own; for where would be the use of exposing Dr.
Bentley
's egregious deficiency in all the polite accomplishments of a scholar; if you did not thereby tacitly inform mankind that Dr.
L . . th
was eminently endowed with them all? This, my Lord, of all the roads, which lead to fame, is the shortest and easiest ascent; 'tis following the camp without mixing in the fray.
That men, born in the same country, cultivators of the same science, professing the same religion, fellow-labourers in the same ministry, should invidiously defame and disparage each other in the eyes of mankind, is a mystery to men of ordinary capacities. If a
Caprimulgus,
my Lord, a low and paltry
Herdsman,
should set about to under-rate the talents of a rival in that rustic occupation; if a
Fossor,
a vulgar untaught
Hedger and Ditcher,
should attempt to disparage the handy-work of a fellow-labourer, such low-bred dealings in clowns might find some excuse; but when we see the same mean passions carried into upper life, and exhibited by a man of your Lordship's talents and erudition, we blush for you, for your profession, for your title; we feel an ingenuous shame for the disreputation, which is brought upon learning, nay, even upon our country; and we sigh when we can no longer esteem a character like your Lordship's;—for surely, my Lord, you forget how much you expose your own fame, when you endeavour to blind and to blacken that of Dr.
Bentley
's.
The treatment the world has thought proper to bestow upon critics in general, suits its gratitude: it is owing to the labours of the eminent in that department, that almost any of the now elegant remains of Greek and Roman literature are at this day intelligible; the moment they were so, the weapons they were so kind to polish for our use, have been employed against themselves: a run therefore upon criticism in general is become too trite to be any longer a subject of complaint; but the pulling down the fame of the dead, though reared by the approbation of the learned of all Europe, must be ungenerous, however severe a provocation may be supposed to be concealed in a man's having been called
incomparable
by the
Bishop of G . . . .
The lot of Dr.
B.
has been particular; as his character is at present arraigned by your Lordship, his condition has in like manner been debased in the
Biographia Britannica,
from that of a gentleman to a mean tradesman: this misrepresentation may perhaps have had a share in inducing your Lordship to bestow upon him the delicate epithets, which you was sure from
Catullus
were good Latin, and from the authority of an uninformed modern historian, you imagined were justly applicable to his supposed birth.
But I just now desired your Lordship to resolve me in which of Dr.
Bentley
's original works it was, that you had discovered such convincing marks of the meanness and contemptible rusticity of his genius: was it in his declamations from the pulpit that he betrayed this utter ignorance of
the beauties and excellencies of writing?
Did ever
Herdsman
from his observations on nature, and the fabric and construction of man, argue up to the divine author and creator of all things with such strength of reasoning, such convictive eloquence, as are to be found in his
Lectures?
Did ever
Hedger and Ditcher
give such edifying, such satisfactory
Reasons for the Hope and the Faith that was in him,
as are given in his famous
Commencement Sermon?
Many clowns, my Lord, it must be confess'd, have preached before kings, and still continue to preach; but does Dr.
Bentley
's sermon before the king impeach him of inurbanity? surely not; and it will be hard to think with your Lordship, that the same person, who was capable of composing in so good a style himself, should be incapable of forming any judgment with respect to that of another man's. I flatter myself therefore I may conclude, that it is not in the pulpit your Lordship will arraign Dr.
Bentley
; it is not for his labours in the cause of religion, the instruction of mankind, and the confutation of atheism, that your Lordship (so conspicuous for merits of the same nature) means to degrade and disgrace his memory. I may say for him what Bishop
W . . . .
pleaded for himself—
Page 114.
"that his services to religion and society seem to entitle him to common respect ---- from every man of letters, engaged in the same cause,
where no personal animosities have intervened.
"
And as your Lordship, in describing your own character, has professed yourself to be,
"
Page 131.
as a member of the commonwealth of letters, a true lover of peace and quietness, of mutual freedom,
candour, and benevolence
; and that you detest and despise the squabbles that are perpetually arising from the jealousy and peevishness of the
genus irritabile scriptorum
;"
I will venture to conclude that you have not taken up this contemptuous opinion of his understanding and abilities, from the services he has done to religion, and the instructions he has bequeathed to mankind.
But, my Lord, this is not all; I have some little matter more to offer in defence of his mangled reputation; some few remarks more to make upon his services in the cause of God and of religion; I hope these will not be taken for tokens of his want of understanding. The confutation of atheism seems an easy and obvious task, a work for real
herdsmen
and
hedgers
; every object proves the existence of the Deity, and every rational being comprehends that proof; but
Bentley,
like a hardy obstinate clown as he was, undertook a bolder task; this ignorant, unpolished peasant undertook, my Lord, to confute and expose the fine gentlemen of his age, the wits and reasoners of the time, the set of
Free-thinkers
that unhinged the age in which he lived, and threw the whole bench of bishops (your Lordship was not then amongst the number) into consternation and dismay. In this dilemma, my Lord, when the whole army of Protestant Divines, mitred and unmitred, like that of
Saul
upon the challenge of
Goliath,
trembled behind their trenches, this despicable herdsman, this booby boor, taken like
David
from the sheep-folds, entered the lists, and singly overthrew the mighty champion of infidelity. The triumphs of Christianity upon this victory were only to be equalled by the applauses, which every true believer bestowed upon their defender: The whole bench of bishops honoured Dr.
Bentley
with their thanks: Behold the revolution of a few years!
Bentley
dies; your Lordship succeeds to a seat on that bench; you dissent from your predecessors, and tear their trophies from his shrine.
Let me stop here for a moment; I would fain preserve all possible respect for your Lordship, and must not therefore pursue my thoughts where they would lead me on this subject. But really if men of your order, who are enlisted and banded together against the legions, that make war upon Christianity, cannot with-hold your fingers from each others throats, how can the general cause of religion prosper? How must the spirits of the modern
Free-thinkers
revive, when your Lordship tells them and the world, that he, who had cut their follies to the heart by the keen edge of his most piercing ridicule, was a man void of
all pure taste
and genius; incapable of any
fine discernment
; blind to all the
beauties and excellencies of writing
; a mere
grammatical and verbal critic
; in short,
unus caprimulgus, aut fossor?
This, my Lord, is pity to the fallen indeed; it is binding up their wounds yet bleeding with his strokes; it is recalling them to life and vigour, putting arms into their hands, and pointing out the victim against whom they should employ them: methinks it puts me in mind of the call of
Lucifer
to his troops of rebel-angels, when they lay prostrate and confounded in the burning gulph: no doubt they will, like them, obey the summons, and arise.
The policy therefore of this conduct of your Lordship's I cannot comprehend; the generosity, the urbanity of it I have already considered; suffer me now to carry my enquiries into the truth of it.
What, my Lord! will you allow the author of
The Remarks
no place but amongst
grammatical and verbal critics?
will you expel him from the society of liberal and well-accomplished scholars? was he fit for no higher uses, than like a juggler to play with
Thericlean cups and Sicilian talents?
was this
his proper sphere of science
; and did he really
excel
in nothing higher? are there no sparks of genuine Attic wit, no sallies of native humour, no polished strokes of temperate and cleanly ridicule, (not such I mean as your Lordship's pleasantries upon the
sin of Sodom
), to be found in that work? are there really no dawnings of
a pure taste,
no shadowings of a
discerning
faculty to be found? your Lordship says no—He possessed them not—He was a clown, a clumsy blockhead—What an error have the learned of all the nations in Europe been in!
Surely, my Lord, without disparaging your Lordship's learned labours, these were works as profitable to mankind, and as serviceable to religion, as determining the aera in which the poem of
Job
(call it
drama
or
dialogue
) was composed; your Lordship sees I give you credit for having actually decided that important question; and am willing to allow you the reputation of having, from
"
a fine discernment of the different characters of composition, colours of style, and manners of thinking,
"
made such nice discoveries in a language, of which there is now extant but one volume, as not only to have been able to fix the date of this poem, (the
Page 80.
Homer
of the Hebrew classics), but to have pointed out to posterity the
Augustan aera of Hebrew poesy,
though you readily allow there was
Page 96.
very little variation in the language from the time of Moses to the Babylonish captivity.
But to convince your Lordship with what reluctance I yield to any impressions in disfavour of that
candour and benevolence,
which you assure us are to be found in such plentiful portions in your composition, I will confess that I am far from thinking we have as yet discovered the cause that ruined Dr.
Bentley
in your good opinion: the laurels he won by his triumphs over atheism and infidelity, I am persuaded, would neither have attracted your envy, nor incurred your ill-will. I dare believe your Lordship is far too considerate in your resentments to abuse any man, when there is no prospect of serving yourself by it, or gratifying your friends; but in the lawful prosecution of one's fortune, when by making one enemy we can gain two patrons, your Lordship understands the value of the world's favour too well, and the road that leads to it, to hesitate a moment; and if Dr.
Bentley
's fame has been one round in the ladder, by which your Lordship has climbed to the summit of preferment,
— "
Scelera ipsa nefasque
"
Hac mercede placent.
"—
There is no harm done, my Lord, the ladder is not one whit the worse for your use; 'tis only brushing the step clean again, which your foot has soiled a little, and it will be as whole and as sound as when you first mounted upon it.
I think therefore we may venture to draw this conclusion, that, had this object of your contempt been blessed with such faculties, as to have reasoned all
Atheism
and
Deism
effectually out of fashion, and put to perpetual silence every professor of infidelity; had he taken the whole walk of criticism to himself, and filled our shelves with notes, comments, and corrections upon every antient classic that has come down to us; he might have done it with impunity, perhaps with applause, had he but spared a certain club of wits, who sucked the milk of science from the same breasts, at which it seems your Lordship fed. With these confederates, your Lordship well knows, he singly maintained a notable controversy, with every advantage on his side, that superior talents for wit, learning and argumentation could give him. If your Lordship doubts which party triumphed in this dispute, you are the only man of erudition in all Europe that does; but this I dare say is by no means the case. You could have pitied him, but you cannot find in your heart to applaud him: facts press so hard upon you, that you have no argument, but the last refuge of a flat denial; and the superiority of his genius is so very conspicuous, that nothing now can be done, but by a resolute and desperate manoeuvre to assail him in that quarter, where he is conceived to be least vulnerable, and consequently least expecting an attack. In some circumstances every thing is to be risked; deny him therefore every faculty for which he was most eminent; and though the very same business, which gives your Lordship the inclination to abuse him, furnishes the amplest refutation of that abuse, be animated by the hazard of the attempt, and make, if possible, the cradle of his reputation, the tomb of it. The difficulty of finding an answer to your Lordship's question at the conclusion of your character of Dr.
Bentley,
now entirely vanishes; and when, after having bestowed every term that your fertile imagination, assisted besides by that of
Catullus,
could furnish, most contemptuous, you ask—
"
What then has he to do here?
"
we are no longer without a solution; and having now discovered the clue to your thoughts, and being fully satisfied that your Lordship never dignifies an author with your abuse, whom you are not secretly convinced is eminent for those very qualifications, that you publicly declare him to be deficient in, we thankfully accept your reprehensions, as a testimony of your private applause, which though it is not indeed signified in so gracious a manner as it might be, yet we hold it of much value, from the certainty with which it directs us to the real sentiments of your heart.
Having thus happily discovered the method of decyphering your Lordship's invectives, I am not without suspicion, that the same key must be applied for construing your applauses. What strengthens this conjecture is, that those talents, which you are pleased to take from Dr.
Bentley,
you liberally bestow upon
Page 21.
Mr.
Hobbes.
According to this rule of inversion, how shall we, my Lord, interpret the many fine things you tell us of yourself? such as that
"you are a true lover peace and quietness, of mutual freedom, candour, and benevolence; that you detest the jealous and peevish squabbles of authors."
These are virtues, which upon your Lordship's report we gave you credit for; it would be with extreme reluctance we should find ourselves obliged to carry them to the other side of the account.
But these are groundless apprehensions. You have favoured the world with a faithful portrait of yourself, however you have dawbed and disguised those of other people: I have at this time your letter to the
Demonstrator of the Divine Legation of Moses
before me; and I hold it for impossible, that the author of any work, so full of pleasant and innocent raillery, so replete with playful and facetious conceits, can be capable of wrath, rancour, and malevolence. Can any thing be more lively than the strain in which you accost your
Right Reverend correspondent
in the second page of your epistle?—
"
I thought,
" says your Lordship, "
you might possibly whip me at the cart's a—
" (I beg pardon, I should have said) "
carts tail, in a note to Divine Legation.
"
—Inimitable humour! courtly, elegant, episcopal wit! so severe upon Bishop
W---
; so very just and suitable to yourself! never did I know a
whipping
better laid on or more properly applied. But behold another attitude!—
"
Or pillory me in the Dunciad.
"
—Surely there is something ravishingly delectable, when a grave, wise and dignified, priest, or
prelate,
like your Lordship, surprises one all at once with a stroke of this nature; there is no withstanding it.—But your vein is not yet exhausted, and you proceed—
"
or, perhaps, have ordered me a kind of Bridewell correction by one of your Beadles in a pamphlet.
"
Well, I protest, my Lord, this climax of yours exceeds in profundity of false humour, every thing that
Swift
has given us in his
Art of Sinking.
We laugh indeed; but it is not a Bishop
W—
: you ask us to an entertainment provided in his name, while your Lordship obligingly pays the whole cost. These postures, in which you have exhibited yourself before us, put me in mind of the freaks of a
Merry Andrew,
who suffers himself to be kicked and cuffed, and tweaked by the nose, to make sport for the mob; while the vile empiric imposes upon them his nostrums and quackeries, the paltry sweepings of the counters, for universal panacea's. When we expected some solemn sententious reproof from the learned and pious
Prelector
on the
Hebrew
Poesy,
out comes all
Bartlemy Fair
let loose upon us at once; and we see your Lordship
whipt at the cart's tail; posted up in the pillory; flogged by the Beadles of Bridewell; caned by Bishop W----'s
Page 11.
footman; hunted and waylaid by his
ibid.
Cherokees and Iroquois,
and at length, (good man!)
exhibited on a
Page 4.
Scaffold, erected on purpose for you, and in the most conspicuous place.
—How much you must have profited by your studies on the book of Job, this example of your patience demonstrates: but what agreeable company to introduce us into! and you seem so sociable and intimate with them;
Footmen,
and
Bum-bailiffs, Beadles, Constables, Hangmen,
and
wild Indians!
Edifying society! elegant allusions! taste, that savours of the kennels of
Saint Giles
's; jests, that would put the
Ordinary
of
Newgate
to the blush; and wit, the genuine offspring, not of
Athens,
but of the
Ola Bailey!
Now; my Lord, would I venture to undergo all the discipline your Lordship has run through, if that old cynic Dr.
Bentley
would have stirred a muscle of his face to laughter at all this pleasantry.—No, no; he had no taste or capacity, but for
hedging and ditching, and milking of Goats
; not a syllable of all this would he have comprehended. In
matters of
such
pure taste,
as your Lordship has now given us a sample of;
compositions
of a
character
so different from any he ever had been used to;
style
of a
colour
so directly opposite to his own, and a
manner of thinking
so utterly unlike that of any gentleman, who ever thought at all, I do allow, and am persuaded he would not have shown the least shadow of
discernment.
For this, however, I do seriously, and from the ground of my heart, thank your Lordship again and again,
viz.
that when you informed the world of his utter want of taste, your consented to give us so fair a specimen of your own. But your railleries are not confined to yourself only, you are wonderfully pleasant upon the patriarchs. Your arch insinuations about
Page 16.
Abraham
's offering his son
Isaac,
are infinitely facetious.—I was so ignorant as to consider this as a circumstance of a most serious and edifying nature; an exalted instance of the most perfect faith in God, and obedience to his word, and a sacred type of our Redeemer's death and passion, selected as the passage of scripture, best suited to our
Good Friday
's meditation; I have been apt therefore to think and to speak of this act of the patriarch's with reverence and devotion. Your Lordship treats it with the levity of a
Milesian Fable,
and puts some arch queries upon the matter relative to
the sin of Sodom.
This
sin of Sodom,
it seems, has been a sort of stumbling-block to your Lordship, and you tell us you have hunted after it
Page 17.
from the beginning of the Bible to the end.
The search might be useful, though the object of it was not the most worthy. I hope, my Lord, you was not equally inquisitive, when you turned to your
Catullus
in search of those reproachful terms,
(Caprimulgus aut Fossor),
to bestow them upon Dr.
Bentley.
Had you ransacked that author through, as you did the Bible, every leaf would have furnished you with descriptions of the
sin of Sodom.
As good luck will have it, you have carried us into one of his cleanliest poems; and as your quotation put me upon reading it over, I really thought I traced the features of your Lordship, as strongly marked out in the picture of
Suffenus,
as you conceived you did those of Dr.
Bentley
; for this
Suffenus,
says the
Vide Cat. ex rec. Is. Voss. page 50.
poet,
Homo est venustus, et dicax, et urbanus,
Idemque longe plurimos facit versus:
* * *
— neque idem unquam
Aeque est beatus, ac poema quum scribit,
Tom gaudet in se, tamque se ipse miratur.
The moral, with which the epigram concludes, I more particularly recommend to your Lordship.
Nimirum idem omnes fallimur; neque est quisquam
Quem non in aliqua re videre Suffenum
Possis: suus quoique adtributus est error:
Sed non videmus manticae quid in tergo est.
But I have detained your Lordship long time, and hasten to conclude my self.
My Lord,
your Lordship's most obedient humble Servant, A MEMBER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.