the son of Jupiter and Leda, and Pollux, the author of the Onomasticon-are ranged under the same heading, and treated as personages equally real. The effect of this arrangement resembles that which would be produced by a dictionary of modern names, consisting of such articles as the following :-" Jones, William, an eminent Orientalist, and one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Judicature in Bengal-Davy, a fiend, who destroys ships-Thomas, a foundling, brought up by Mr. Allworthy." It is from such sources as these that Temple seems to have learned all that he knew about the ancients. He puts the story of Orpheus between the Olympic games, and the battle of Arbela; as if he had exactly as much reason for believing that Orpheus led beasts with his lyre, as we have for believing that there were races at Pisa, or that Alexander conquered Darius.

Absurd omissions.

He manages little better when he comes to the moderns. He gives us a catalogue of those whom he regards as the greatest wits of later times. It is sufficient to say that, in his list of Italians, he has omitted Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso; in his list of Spaniards, Lopé and Calderon; in his list of French, Pascal, Bossuet, Molière, Corneille, Racine, and Boileau; and in his list of English, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, and Mil

ton.

In the midst of all this vast mass of absurdity one paragraph stands out preeminent. The doctrine of Temple-not a very comfortable one-is, that the human race is constantly degenerating; and that the oldest books in every kind are the best. In confirmation of this doctrine, he remarks that the Fables of Æsop are the best Fables, and the Letters of Phalaris the best Letters in the world. On the merit of the Letters of Phalaris he dwells with great warmth and with extraordinary felicity of language. Indeed, we could hardly select a more favourable specimen of the graceful and easy majesty to which his style sometimes

An unlucky passage.

rises than this unlucky passage. He knows, he says, that some learned men, or men who passed for learned, such as Politian, have doubted the genuineness of these letters. But of these doubts he speaks with the greatest contempt. Now it is perfectly certain, first, that the letters are very bad;

on the side of the ancients, and were inclined rather to veil than to expose the blunders of an ally; the champions of the moderns were generally as ignorant as Temple himself; and the multitude was charmed by his flowing and melodious diction. He was doomed, however, to smart, as he well deserved, for his vanity and folly.

Letters of Phalaris.

Christchurch at Oxford was then widely and justly celebrated as a place where the lighter parts of classical learning were cultivated with success. With the deeper mysteries of philology neither the instructors nor the pupils had the smallest acquaintance. They fancied themselves Scaligers, as Bentley scornfully said, as soon as they could write a copy of Latin verses with only two or three small faults. From this College proceeded a new edition of the Letters of Phalaris, which were rare, and had been in request since the appearance of Temple's Essay. The nominal editor was Charles Boyle, a young man of noble family and promising parts; but some older members of the society lent their assistance. While this work was in preparation an idle quarrel, occasioned, it should seem, by the negligence and misrepresentations of a bookseller, arose between Boyle and the King's Librarian, Richard Bentley. Boyle, in the preface to his edition, inserted a bitter reflection on Bentley. Bentley revenged himself by proving that the Epistles of Phalaris were forgeries; and in his remarks on this subject treated Temple, not indecently, but with no great

reverence.

Temple, who was quite unaccustomed to any but the most respectful usage, who, even while engaged in politics, had always shrunk from all rude collision, and had generally succeeded in avoiding it, and whose sensitiveness had been increased by many years of seclusion and flattery-was moved to most violent

Temple's resentment.

resentment; complained, very unjustly, of Bentley's foul-mouthed raillery; and declared that he had commenced an answer, but had laid it aside, "having no mind to enter the lists with such a mean, dull, unmannerly pedant." Whatever may be thought of the temper which Sir William showed on this occasion, we cannot too highly applaud his discretion in not finishing and publishing his answer, which would certainly have been a most extraordinary performance.

He was not, however, without defenders. Like Hector, when struck down prostrate by Ajax, he was in an instant covered by a thick crowd of shields

Temple's defenders.

“ ὄντις ἐδυνήσατο ποιμένα λαῶν Οὐτάσαι οὐδὲ βαλειν· πρὶν γὰρ περίβησαν ἄριστοι, Πουλυδάμας τε, καὶ Αινείας, καὶ δῖος ̓Αγήνωρ, Σαρπηδών τ' ἀρχὸς Λυκίων, καὶ Γλαυκος ἀμύμων.” Christchurch was up in arms; and though that college seems then to have been almost destitute of severe and accurate learning, no academical society could show a greater array of orators, wits, politicians,-bustling adventurers who united the superficial accomplishments of the scholar with the manners and arts of the man of the world; and this formidable body resolved to try how far smart repartees, well turned sentences, confidence, puffing, and intrigue could,― on the question whether a Greek book were or were not genuine,-supply the place of a little knowledge of Greek.

Reply to Bentley.

Out came the Reply to Bentley, bearing the name of Boyle, but in truth written by Atterbury, with the assistance of Smalridge and others. A most remarkable book it is, and often reminds us of Goldsmith's observation, that the French would be the best cooks in the world if they had any butcher's meat; for that they can make ten dishes out of a nettletop. It really deserves the praise, whatever that praise may be worth, of being the best book ever written by any man on the wrong side of a question of which he was profoundly ignorant. The learning of the confederacy is that of a schoolboy, and not of an extraordinary schoolboy; but it is used with the skill and address of most able, artful, and experienced men; it is beaten out to the very thinnest leaf, and is disposed in such a way as to seem ten times larger than it is. The dexterity with which

they avoid grappling with those parts of the subject with which they know themselves to be incompetent to deal is quite wonderful. Now and then, indeed, they commit disgraceful blunders, for which old Busby, under whom they had studied, would have whipped them all round. But this circumstance only raises our opinion of the talents which made such a fight with such scanty means. Let our readers, who are not acquainted with the controversy, imagine a Frenchman who has acquired just English enough to read the Spectator with a dictionary, coming forward to defend the genuineness of "Rowley's Poems" against Percy and Farmer; and they will have some notion of the feat which Atterbury had the audacity to undertake, and which, for a time, it was really thought he had performed.

Bentley's

answer.

The illusion was soon dispelled. Bentley's answer for ever settled the question, and established his claim to the first place amongst classical scholars. Nor do those do him justice who represent the controversy as a battle between wit and learning. For, though there is a lamentable deficiency of learning on the side of Boyle, there is no want of wit on the side of Bentley. Other qualities too, as valuable as either wit or learning, appear conspicuously in Bentley's book; -a rare sagacity, an unrivalled power of combination, a perfect mastery of all the weapons of logic. He was greatly indebted to the furious outcry which the misrepresentations, sarcasms, and intrigues of his opponents had raised against him; an outcry in which fashionable and political circles joined, and which was re-echoed by thousands who did not know whether Phalaris ruled in Sicily or in Siam. His spirit, daring even to rashness-self-confident, even to negligence -and proud, even to insolent ferocitywas awed for the first and for the last time-awed, not into meanness or cowardice, but into wariness and sobriety. For once he ran no risks; he left no crevice unguarded; he wantoned in no paradoxes ;-above all he returned no railing for the railing of his enemies. In almost everything that he has written we can discover proofs of genius and learning. But it is only here that his genius and learning appear to have been constantly under the guidance of good sense and good temper. Here we find none of that besotted reliance on his own

powers and on his own luck, which he showed when he undertook to edite Milton; none of that perverted ingenuity which deforms so many of his notes on Horace; none of that disdainful careless. ness by which he laid himself open to the keen and dexterous thrust of Middleton: none of that extravagant vaunting and savage scurrility by which he afterwards dishonoured his studies and profession, and degraded himself almost to the level of De Paucs.

Temple did not live to witness the utter and irreparable defeat of his champions. He died, indeed at a fortunate moment, just after the appearance of Boyle's book, and while all England was laughing at the way in which the Christchurch men had handled the pedant. In Boyle's book, Temple was Temple com- praised in the highest pared to Memmius. terms, and compared to Memmius-not a very happy comparison; for the only particular information which we have about Memmius is, that in agitated times he thought it his duty to attend exclusively to politics; and that his friends could not venture, except when the Republic was quiet and prosperous, to intrude on him with their philosophical and poetical productions. It is on this account, that Lucretius puts up the exquisitely beautiful prayer for peace with which his poem opens,

"Nam neque nos agere hoc patrial tempore iniquo

Possumus æquo animo, nec Memmi clara propago

Talibus in rebus communi deesse saluti."

This description is surely by no means applicable to a statesman who had, through the whole course of his life, carefully avoided exposing himself in seasons of trouble; who had repeatedly refused, in most critical conjunctures, to be Secretary of State; and who now, in the midst of revolutions, plots, foreign and domestic wars, was quietly writing nonsense about the visits of Lycurgus to the Brahmins, and the tunes which Arion played to the Dolphin.

We must not omit to mention that, while the controversy about Phalaris was raging, Swift, in order to show his zeal

A vague assertion.

Of Temple's character little more remains to be said. Burnet accuses him of holding irreligious opinions, and corrupting everybody who came near him. But the vague assertion of so rash and partial a writer as Burnet, about a man with whom, as far as we know, he never exchanged a word, is of very little weight. It is, indeed, by no means improbable that Temple may have been a freethinker. The Osbornes thought him so when he was a very young man. And it is certain that a large proportion of the gentlemen of rank and fashion who made their entrance into society while the Puritan party was at the height of power, and while the memory of the reign of that party was still recent, conceived a strong disgust for all religion. The imputation was common between Temple and all the most distinguished courtiers of the age. Rochester and Buckingham were open scoffers, and Mulgrave very little better. Shaftesbury, though more guarded, was supposed to agree with them in opinion. All the three noblemen who were Temple's colleagues during the short time of his continuance in the Cabinet, were of very indifferent repute as to orthodoxy. Halifax, indeed, was generally considered as an atheist; but he solemnly denied the charge; and, indeed, the truth seems to be, that he was more religiously disposed than most of the statesmen of that age; though two impulses which were unusually strong in him-a passion for ludicrous images, and a passion for subtle speculations-sometimes prompted him

to talk on serious subjects in a manner which gave great and just offence. It is not unlikely that Temple, who seldom went below the surface of any question, may have been infected with the prevail. ing scepticism. All that we can say on the subject is, that there is no trace of impiety in his works; and that the ease with which he carried his election for an university, where the majority of the voters were clergymen, though it proves nothing as to his opinions, must, we think, be considered as proving that he was not, as Burnet seems to insinuate, in the habit of talking atheism to all who came near him.

Temple, however, will scarcely carry with him any great accession of authority to the side either of religion or of infidelity. He was no profound thinker. He was merely a man of lively parts and quick observation-a man of the world amongst men of letters-a man of letters amongst men of the world. Mere scholars were dazzled by the Ambassador and Cabinet councillor; mere politicians by the Essayist and Historian. But neither as a writer nor as a statesman can we allot to him any very high place. As

a man, he seems to us to have been excessively selfish, but very sober, wary, and far-sighted in his

character.

selfishness; to have known Summary of better than most people

know what he really wanted in life; and to have pursued what he wanted with much more than ordinary steadiness and sagacity;-never suffering himself to be drawn aside either by bad or by good feelings. It was his constitution to dread failure more than he desired success-to prefer security, comfort, repose, leisure, to the turmoil and anxiety which are inseparable from greatness;-and this natural languor of mind, when contrasted with the malignant energy of the keen and restless spirits among whom his lot was cast, sometimes appears to resemble the moderation of virtue. But we must own, that he seems to us to sink into littleness and meanness when we compare him-we do not say with any high ideal standard of morality,-but with many of those frail men who, aiming at noble ends, but often drawn from the right path by strong passions and strong temptations, have left to posterity a doubtful and checkered fame.

Edition. London: 1839.

THE author of this volume is a young man of unblemished character, and of distinguished parliamentary talents, the rising hope of those stern and unbending Tories, who follow, reluctantly and mutinously, a leader, whose experience

and eloquence are indisGladstone pensable to them, but a Tory. whose cautious temper and moderate opinions they abhor. It would not be at all strange if Mr. Gladstone were one of the most unpopular men in England. But we believe that we do him no more than justice when we say that his abilities and his demeanour have obtained for him the respect and goodwill of all parties. His first appearance in the character of an author is therefore an interesting event; and it is natural that the gentle wishes of the public should go with him to his trial.

We are much pleased, without any reference to the soundness or unsoundness of Mr. Gladstone's theories, to see a grave and elaborate treatise on an important part of the Philosophy of Government proceed from the pen of a young man who is rising to eminence in the House of Commons. There is little danger that people engaged in the conflicts of active life will be too much addicted to general speculation. The opposite vice is that which most easily besets them. The

He finds that there is a great difference between the effect of written words, which are perused and reperused in the stillness of the closet, and the effect of spoken words, which, set off by the graces of utterance and gesture, vibrate for a single moment on the ear. He finds that he may blunder without much chance of being detected, that he may reason sophistically, and escape unrefuted. He finds that, even on knotted questions of trade and legislation, he can, without reading ten pages, or thinking ten minutes, draw forth loud plaudits, and sit down with the credit of having made an excellent speech. Lysias, says Plutarch, wrote a defence for a man who was to be tried before one of the Athenian tribunals. Long before the defendant had learned the speech by heart, he became so much dissatisfied with it, that he went in great distress to the author. "I was delighted with your speech the first time I read it; but I liked it less the second time, and still less the third time; and now it seems to me to be no defence at all." "My good friend," said Lysias, "you quite forget that the judges are to hear it only

Lysias and the defendant.

once." The case is the same in the English Parliament. It would be as idle in an orator to waste deep meditation and long research on his speeches, as it would be in the manager of a theatre to adorn all the crowd of courtiers and ladies who cross over the stage in a procession with real pearls and diamonds. It is not by accuracy or profundity that men become the masters of great assemblies. And why be at the charge of providing logic of the best quality, when a very inferior article will be equally acceptable? Why go as deep into a question as Burke, only in order to be,