in speaking; he was so far from intending any insult or injury, that he had really forgotten what he had said, and hoped the other would not remember it; upon his word and honor he never meant to give him the least offence, but if undesignedly he had offended him, he was sorry for it, and was ready to beg his pardon, which was a gentleman's satisfaction. Well, said Mr. Reeve, as the affront was public, the reparation must be so too; if thou wilt not fight, but beg my pardon, thou must beginy pardon before the company in the next room. Mr. Henley with some difficulty, and after some delay submitted to this condition, and thus this fray ended. No farther notice was taken on either side, till after some years the Lord Chancellor wrote a letter to Mr. Reeve, informing him that such a ship was come or coming into the port of Bristol with a couple of pipes of Madeira on board, consigned to him. He therefore begged of Mr. Reeve to pay the freight and the duty, and to cause the vessels to be put into a waggon, and to be sent to the Grange; and he would take the first opportunity of defraying all charges, and should think himself infinitely obliged to him. All was done as desired; and the winter following, when Mr. Reeve was in town, he dined at the Chancellor's with several of the nobility and gentry. After dinner the Chancellor related the whole story of his first acquaintance with his friend Reeve, and of every particular that had passed between them with great good humour and pleasantry, and to the no little diversion of the company. Six years Newton continued at Westminster School, five years of which he passed in College, having stayed one year to be Captain, as Andrew Stone had done the year before him, and Johnson did the year after him. He always thought the mode of education in College, and the taste which prevailed there, as far superior to that of the School, as that of the School to any Country School; and well it might be, when there were so many ingenious spirits to provoke one another to emulation. If Bishop Smalrige had been living at the election in May 1723, his townsman would undoubtedly have been elected to Christ Church in Oxford; and perhaps it would have been better for him if it had so happened, as the most considerable of his school fellows went thither who might have been of service to him in future life. But he preferred going to Cambridge, thinking the studies there rather more manly, and knowing the fellowships of Trinity College to be much more valuable than the studentships of Christ's Church; and accordingly made interest to Dr. Bentley to be by him elected first to Cambridge. The Doctor was not displeased, but wondered at the strangeness of this application, the Westminster Scholars, if ever they applied to him, applying more usually that he would not, than that he would elect them to Cambridge. For they supposed him to have no friendly disposition towards them ever since his famous dispute with the Christ Church men concerning the Epistles of Phalaris; and he had sometimes been heard to say that the School had pro-, duced only one good scholar, old Prideaux; but after his son had married a niece of Dr. Freind, and he had lived and conversed more among them, he conceived a better opinion of them, and declared that Freind had more good learning in him than he had ever imagined. The truth is, there were faults on both sides. They were apt to be pert and saucy to him, and he was rough and supercilious to them. They often sided with the party in College which was against the Master, and no wonder he preferred his Wakefield lads as often as he had opportunity: but yet there are instances of his choosing out of three or four Westminster Scholars two or three Fellows; and he seldom or never set aside the Senior Westminster, unless he had been guilty of some great misdemea nor. He was indeed an arbitrary Master, attended little to the duties of his station, very rarely was seen in the Chapel, and set no good example but that of hard study. In his latter days he loved his bottle of old Port, and used to say that Claret would be Port if it could. However he must be allowed allowed to have been a most excellent Scholar, a most acute and able Critic, and had withall a great deal of wit and pleasantry. His edition of the Paradise Lost may be said to be his most puny child, and his edition of the Greek Testament (to the regret of the learned world) proved an abor tion. His name was as much celebrated abroad' as at home through his Latin writings, and his edi tions and remarks upon various authors. It was said that a design was formed for bring over Le Clere from Holland, and for constituting him the Royal Librarian, which place was then possessed by Dr. Bentley, who for this reason was supposed' to publish his edition of the fragments of Menan der and Philemon, which Le Clerc had published before, in order to expose the futility of Le Clerc's criticisms, and thereby to disconcert the scheme! for his intended promotion. His edition of Terence engaged him in a controversy with Dr." Hare another editor of Terence, which was the more extraordinary, as they had been good friends' before, and drew a severe reflection upon them' from Sir Isaac Newton, that two such Divines instead of minding the duties of their function should' be squabbling about an old play-book. His English writings are not so numerous as his Latin; his Sermonsat Boyle's Lectures, being the first that' were preached upon that foundation; his Disser tations on the Epistles of Themistocles, Socrates, Euripides, 2 Euripides, and sop's Fables, annexed to Wotton's. Reflections upon ancient and modern learning; his Remarks upon Collins's discourse of free-thinking, for which he received the thanks of the Clergy; and his chief work, his Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris with his answer to the objections. of Mr. Boyle, afterwards Earl of Orrery. This work passed under the name of Mr. Boyle, but it was generally known that he was assisted in it by Atterbury who had been his tutor, and by other learned and ingenious, men of Christ Church; insomuch that Swift in his Battle of the Books says, that Boyle's suit of armour was given him by all the gods. The wits of that time generally gave the preference to Mr. Boyle, as Swift did in the said. Battle of the Books; for Dr. Bentley's Dissertation having been first published at the end of Wotton's Reflections upon learning, Swift represents Boyle: with his lance, thrusting them thro' both together, and spitting them like a couple of woodcocks.. Dr. Garth likewise has these memorable lines in his Dispensary, So diamonds take a lustre from their foyle, But all men of letters are now agreed, that Dr. Bentley has greatly the advantage in point of argue ment as well as learning, It is a controversy very: well worth reading for the uncommon erudition dis played |