Pulteney wrote a number of political pamphlets, partly on the National Debt and the Sinking Fund, and partly on the partisanships of the day. He was remarkable for his Parliamentary eloquence, and, like most English statesmen, prided himself on his knowledge of the classics.

"While Sir Robert Walpole was prime minister, a question arose one day in the House between him and Pulteney, Earl of Bath. It related to a passage in Horace, on which they wagered a guinea. The bet was won by Pulteney; and the identical guinea may still be seen in the British Museum, with the following note in the winner's own hand: This guinea I desire may be kept as an heirloom. It was won of Sir Robert Walpole, in the House of Commons, he asserting the verse in Horace to be "Nulli pallescere culpæ," whereas I laid the wager of a guinea that it was "Nulla pallescere culpa." He sent for the book, and, being convinced that he had lost, gave me this guinea. I told him I could take the money without a blush on my side, but believed it was the only money he ever gave in the House where the giver and receiver ought not to blush. This guinea, I hope, will prove to my posterity the use of knowing Latin and encourage them in their learning.'"- – Brougham,

Bentley.

Richard Bentley, D. D., 1661-1742, Master of Trinity College, and Regius Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, is probably the greatest classical critic that England has yet produced. He is often called The British Aristarchus.

Bentley's chief work was his Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris, in which he undertook to prove that those and certain other oft quoted ancient documents were modern forgeries. The discussion excited a furious controversy, in which nearly all the great scholars and wits of the nation were enrolled against him,-Boyle, Atterbury, Conyers Middleton, Pope, Swift, and the whole posse of scholars hailing from Oxford, to which rival University Boyle, his nominal antagonist, belonged. Bentley held his ground single-handed against them all, and in the course of the argument displayed such amazing resources of learning, and such critical acumen, as raised him to the highest pinnacle of fame as a classical scholar and a critic.

Two other works of Bentley's which also gained him great applause, and for which his critical learning and abilities were well adapted, were his Editions of Horace and Terence. He began also a new critical edition of Homer, but did not live to complete it. His design was to restore to the text the old Greek Digamma, a letter which has been dropped in all modern editions of the poet.

Merits as a Critic.- Bentley was the most skilful of all critics in the matter of conjectural emendation. He was bold even to audacity in this respect, and yet his most important emendations have stood the test of scrutiny, and have for the most part become a part of the received text of the authors so amended. He was not always so

fortunate, however. He attempted in this way the emendation of Paradise Lost, under the idea that those who transcribed the poem for the blind poet had mistaken his words. His attempt thus to improve the text of Milton was a signal and almost ridiculous failure.

Bentley published also numerous Sermons and some other works; but his Dissertations on the Epistles of Phalaris and his Editions of Horace and Terence form the enduring monument of his fame.

HON. CHARLES BOYLE, 1676-1731, Earl of Orrery, and nephew of the celebrated philosopher, Robert Boyle, was himself a man of distinguished abilities, and was held in high estimation by the dignitaries at Oxford, and by Swift, Atterbury, Pope, and others.

Boyle published an edition of the Epistles of Phalaris, and in an evil hour was tempted into a controversy with Bentley, in regard to their authenticity. Atterbury helped him in his defence, writing, it is supposed, the greater part of it, and all of that set joined in the hue and cry against the merciless critic. But jibes and sarcasms were no protection against the "swashing blows" delivered by Bentley. Besides his part in this celebrated controversy, Boyle wrote As you Find it, a Comedy; and some other pieces.

JOHN BOYLE, 1707-1762, Earl of Cork and Orrery, and son of Charles Boyle, like his father, and like most of that noble family for several generations, gained for himself a name in the republic of letters. His chief publications were Poems to the Memory of the Duke of Buckingham; Imitations of the Odes of Horace; Translations of Pliny's Letters Memoirs of Robert Cary, Earl of Monmouth; Letters from Italy; Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift. The publication last named led to some controversy. The Earl had been very intimate with Swift, and in this work, written after Swift's death, made some revelations in regard to Swift which were censured as dishonorable and as a breach of confidence. Dr. Johnson, however, defends the Earl, and contends that the publication was due to the truth of history.

Conyers Middleton, 1683-1750, was a voluminous writer, belonging to what may be called the quarrelsome class.

Middleton studied at Cambridge, and took orders in the Church of England. In calling him quarrelsome, it is not meant to affirm that there was anything malicious in his disposition, but the fact was, he never seemed so well suited as when he had put forward in a dogmatic and irritating manner some disputed point and thereby provoked violent contradiction.

Literary Quarrels. — Early in life Middleton had a quarrel, ending in a lawsuit, with the renowned Bentley, concerning excessive fees demanded by the latter. Middleton became involved in a controversy with Bishop Pearce over some remarks of Middleton's upon Waterland's Vindication of Scripture, which controversy nearly cost him his place as Librarian at Cambridge, on the ground of his unorthodox opinions. His celebrated treatise, Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers of the Christian Church, was the cause of an angry dispute, and no sooner had this in a manner subsided than Middleton started a fresh commotion by his attack upon Bishop Sherlock's theory of the chain of prophecy running through the Old Testament, Of Mid

ɗleton's controversial writings as a whole, it may be said that they probably had no definite aim, as they certainly have not had any definite result.

His Life of Cicero. — The author's fame rests chiefly upon his Life of Cicero, which was, until the appearance of Forsyth's Cicero, the standard work upon the subject. Middleton's Cicero is an able and well-written biography, although open to criticism. The style is easy and vigorous, but disfigured here and there by the use of slang phrases. The chief objection to the conception of the work is that it extols Cicero unduly.

De Foe.

Daniel De Foe, 1661-1731, was the author of the worldrenowned Robinson Crusoe.

Career. De Foe was the son of a butcher, James Foe, the prefix being assumed by Daniel. He was educated among the dissenters, and was expected to become a minister, but he did not carry out the plans of his friends. He was for a time a soldier; he was a political negotiator; he engaged in several kinds of trade. But his chief occupation was that of authorship.

The complete edition of

The amount that he wrote was enormous. his works, by Walter Scott, was in 20 vols., 12mo. A large part of his writings was on political subjects. He entered freely into the discussion of public affairs, and not always on the winning side. The ups and downs of his own life were numerous and great:

"No man hath tasted differing fortunes more;

And thirteen times I have been rich and poor.

I have seen the rough side of life, as well as the smooth; and have, in less than half a year, tasted the difference between the closet of a King and the dungeon at Newgate."

A Piece of Irony. - One of De Foe's publications was the Shortest Way with the Dissenters. "In this playful piece of irony, the author gravely proposed, as the easiest and speediest way of ridding the land of Dissenters, to hang their ministers and banish the people. Both Churchmen and Dissenters viewed the whole matter in a serious light; and while many of the former applauded the author as a staunch and worthy Churchman, as many of the latter, filled with apprehensions dire, began to prepare for Tyburn and Smithfield." The House of Commons declared the book a libel, and ordered it to be burnt by the hangman, and the author to stand in the pillory. To this Pope refers:

"Earless on high stood unabashed De Foe."- The Dunciad. De Foe took the matter very coolly, and wrote an ode to the Pillory,

"A hieroglyphic state-machine
Condemned to punish fancy in."

Works.-De Foe's works number more than two hundred; all of them were on subjects of popular interest, and were at the time much read. He is now known, however, almost exclusively as a novelist, and most of all by his one novel, The Adven

tures of Robinson Crusoe. Of his other novels, the most noted are Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack, Roxana, and Captain Singleton.

"While all ages and descriptions of people hang delighted over Robinson Crusoe, and shall continue to do so, we trust, while the world lasts, how few comparatively will bear to be told, that there exist other fictitious narratives by the same writer,four of them, at least, of no inferior interest, Roxana, Singleton, Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack, — all genuine offspring of the same father." — Charles Lamb.

"We are compelled to regard him as a phenomenon, and to consider his genius as something rare and curious, which it is impossible to assign to any class whatever. Throughout the ample stores of fiction in which our literature abounds, more than that of any other people, there are no works which at all resemble his, either in the design or the execution. Without any precursor in the strange and uncarved path which he chose, and without a follower, he spun his web of coarse but original materials, which no mortal had ever thought of using before; and when he had done, it seems as though he had snapped the thread, and conveyed it beyond the reach of imitation. To have a train of followers is usually considered as adding to the reputation of a writer: it is a peculiar honor to De Foe that he had none. Wherever he has stolen a grace beyond the reach of art, wherever the vigor and freshness of nature are apparent, there he is inaccessible to imitation."- Retrospective Review.

"Was there ever anything written by mere man that the reader wished longer, except Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote, and The Pilgrim's Progress?"— Dr. Johnson.

WILLIAM WOLLASTON, 1659-1724, a clergyman of leisure, educated at Cambridge, published in 1722 a work called The Religion of Nature, which was much read, and is often quoted in religious and philosophical treatises of the eighteenth century.

Wollaston wrote other things, but this is the only one by which he is known. In it he maintains that Truth is the supreme good, and the source of all morality, laying down, as a foundation of his argument, that every action is a good one which expresses in act a true proposition.

SAMUEL CLARKE, D. D., 1675–1729, was a celebrated philosophical writer. His chief book was his Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, being one of the Boyle courses of Lectures. This work is intended as a confutation of the works of Spinoza and Hobbes. He wrote also The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, and some other works.

JOHN NORRIS, 1657-1711, was a learned metaphysician and divine. He was a Platonist in his views, and strongly inclined to mysticism. He wrote a treatise on the Platonic theory of innate ideas, advocating the system of Malebranche on that subject, and arguing against the theory of Locke. The following are his chief publications: An Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Unintelligible World, considering it absolutely in Itself, 2 vols., 8vo; A Philosophical Discourse concerning the Natural Immortality of the Soul; Two Treatises concerning the Divine Light; An Account of Reason and Faith; Reason and Religion; Christian Blessedness, or Practical Discourses on the Beatitudes; An Idea of Happiness; Miscellanies, consisting of Poems, Essays, Discourses, and Letters.

"Norris is more thoroughly Platonic than Malebranche, to whom, however, he pays great deference, and adopts his fundamental hypothesis of seeing all things in God. He is a writer of fine genius, and a noble elevation of moral sentiments, such as predisposes men for the Platonic schemes of theosophy. He looked up to Augustine with

as much veneration as to Plato, and respected more, perhaps, than Malebranche, certainly more than the generality of English writers, the theological metaphysicians of the schools. With these he mingled some visions of a later mysticism. But his reasonings will seldom bear a close scrutiny.". - Hallam's Lit. Hist of Europe.

JOHN HUTCHINSON, 1674-1737, was the founder of the Hutchinsonian school of interpretation.

Hutchinson was a native of Yorkshire. He was a layman, without the advantages of University education, but he acquired by private study a good deal of linguistic and scientific knowledge, and he wrote many works in support and illustration of a new scheme of biblical interpretation, which went by his name and was for a time much in vogue. The pivotal idea of his system was that the Hebrew Scriptures contain the elements of science and philosophy as well as of religion, and that science is to be interpreted by the Bible.

Works. - Hutchinson's principal works are the following: Moses's Principia; Moses sine Principio; The Confusion of Tongues and Trinity of the Gentiles; The Hebrew Writings Complete; A Treatise on Power, Essential and Mechanical; Glory of Gravity, Essential and Mechanical; Giory, Mechanical; The Human Frame, or Agents that circulate the Blood explained; the Religion of Satan, or Antichrist Delineated, etc.

"The works of Hutchinson are entitled to notice, as their author was the founder of a school of philosophy and theology to which some of the most celebrated men of the last century belonged. However absurd many of its speculations seem to be, there must be a plausibility in the leading principles of a system which engaged the attention and support of such men as President Forbes and Bishop Horne, Mr. Parkhurst and Bishop Horsley. The leading idea of Hutchinson is that the Hebrew Scriptures contain the elements of all rational philosophy as well as of genuine religion. That philosophy he opposes to the Newtonian; and hence he wrote his Moses's Principia, or a commentary on the Mosaic account of the creation and the deluge. His Moses sine Principio contains an account of the fall, and of other subjects connected with it. His work on the confusion of tongues is very ingenious; in which he attempts to prove that it was not a diversity of languages, but of religion, that took place at Babel. His Trinity of the Gentiles gives a view of ancient mythology and idolatry, considered chiefly as a corruption of the true religion. In the Covenant of the Cherubim he gives a view of the perfection of the Hebrew Scriptures, and of the Covenant of the Divine Three for the redemption of man. Hutchinson is an obscure, and, at the same time, a most dogmatical and abusive writer. It is often exceedingly difficult to ascertain his meaning, and still more difficult to acquiesce in it when ascertained. That he and his scholars have contributed considerably to the interpretation of the Bible, it would be wrong to deny. They have done a good deal, at the same time, to injure and clog the science of criticism."-Orme's Bibl. Bib.

ANDREW WILSON, M. D., a Scotchman, and an advocate of the Hutchinsonian theories, published, 1750–1767, several works on that subject, opposing the Newtonian Philosophy, and contending that all philosophy should be deduced from the Hebrew Bible: The Creation the Groundwork of Revelation, and Revelation the Language of Nature; Human Nature Surveyed by Philosophy and Revelation; The Principles and Moving