the waves of time. He may depart hence before the natural term, worn out with intellectual toil, regarded with suspicion by many of his contemporaries; yet not without a sure hope, that the love of truth, which men of saintly lives often seem to slight, is, nevertheless, accepted before God. APPENDIX. No. I. NOTE TO PAGE 338. ON THE "PHALARIS CONTROVERSY." THE controversy here referred to was a learned dispute between Charles Boyle, afterward Earl of Orrery, and Richard Bentley, respecting the genuineness of the Epistles ascribed to Phalaris, the Agrigentine tyrant of brazen-bull memory, but proved to be a forgery of comparatively recent date. In The controversy originated in the following manner. the year 1690, Sir William Temple published in his Miscel lanea an "Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning," in which he spoke in extravagant terms of the Epistles of Phalaris, as exemplifying the vast superiority of ancient over modern learning. This eulogy from a writer of such high authority suggested to Dr. Aldrich, then Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, the republication of the work in question, an undertaking which he assigned to the Hon. Charles Boyle, a student of that College. In 1697, the Rev. William Wotton published a second edition of his "Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning," to which Bentley, at his request, contributed a "Dissertation" on the Epistles of Phalaris and other topics connected with Wotton's publication. This paper contained a severe attack on the Epistles, and on Boyle's edition, and was thought by the scholars of Christ Church to reflect injuriously on the credit of that College. A bitter reply was published during the following year, entitled, "Dr. Bentley's Dissertations on the Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of Æsop, examined by the Honorable Charles Boyle, Esq." Though bearing the name of Boyle, the work is supposed to have been the production of Francis Atterbury, his tutor, assisted by various contributors. This superficial but ingenious and amusing essay obtained great popularity, and passed at once to a second edition. It was deemed a complete success, and figures in Swift's "Battle of the Books" as a signal victory achieved by a gifted youth, with the aid of Apollo, over a rude and contemptuous adversary. Bentley was undisturbed, and uttered on this occasion the memorable saying, that "No man was ever written down by anybody but himself." In 1699, he published his "Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris: with an Answer to the Objections of the Hon. Charles Boyle, Esq.," which set the matter forever at rest. The spuriousness of the Epistles, the ignorance and impudence of the author of Boyle's Examination, were triumphantly exposed. An answer was threatened, but none was attempted, and none was possible. See Dyce's Preface to Bentley's Works, Monk's Life of Bentley, and Macaulay's Life of Francis Atterbury (the latter in the Encyclopædia Britannica, Am. ed.). |