crease of the white population from 1810 to 1820, was within a few hundreds of 2,000,000. If we are to attribute to procreation only 20 per cent on the number returned by the census of 1810, we shall have about 830,000 persons to account for in some other way;-and to suppose that the emigrants who went to America between the peace of 1815 and the census of 1820, with the children who were born to them there, would make up that number, would be the height of absurdity.

We could say much more; but we think it quite unnecessary at present. We have shown that Mr Sadler is careless in the collection of facts,-that he is incapable of reasoning on facts when he has collected them,-that he does not understand the simplest terms of science,—that he has enounced a proposition of which he does not know the meaning,-that the proposition which he means to enounce, and which he tries to prove, leads directly to all those consequences which he represents as impious and immoral,-and that, from the very documents to which he has himself appealed, it may be demonstrated that his theory is falsc. We may, perhaps, resume the subject when his next volume appears. Meanwhile, we hope that he will delay its publication until he has learned a little arithmetic, and unlearned a great deal of cloquence.

ART. II.-The Life of Richard Bentley, D.D. Master of Trinity College, and Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge: with an Account of his Writings, and Anecdotes of many distinguished Characters during the period in which he flourished. By JAMES HENRY MONK, D.D. Dean of Peterborough. 4to. London: 1830.

IN

N the history of classical learning in England, where classical learning has long flourished, and where we trust it will long continue to flourish, the most conspicuous name is that of Richard Bentley, who was indeed one of the most prominent characters of the age to which he belonged; he was equally distinguished for the vigour of his intellect, the extent of his erudition, and the decision of his conduct. His life was long and active, and certainly was not spent in an even tenor; it was

*Nulli sunt bostes eruditionis, nisi ineruditi, qui fumos suos, licet videantur goat, non nisi suæ sortis hominibus possunt venditare.' (Grævii Præf. in Bern. Ferrarium de Ritu sacrarum Ecclesiæ veteris Concionum, p. iii. Ultraj. 1692, 8vo.)

spent in such a manner, that his natural element appears to have been the element of strife and contention. His literary controversies, not few in number, were conducted with much ferocity; nor was his name more familiarly known in the classical haunts of the Muses, than in the unclassical Court of King's Bench. Of this most learned and pugnacious individual, no ample and satisfactory account had hitherto appeared; and the task of recording the events of his personal and literary history, was very laudably undertaken by Dr Monk, who has cultivated similar studies, and who was lately a fellow of the college over which Bentley presided for the space of forty-two years. Many of the continental scholars may perhaps regret that his life was not written in the general language of the learned; but those who are acquainted with such excellent models as the life of Hemsterhusius, written by Ruhnkenius, and the life of Ruhnkenius, written by Wyttenbach, would not easily have been satisfied with the execution of a similar task. The Elogium Tiberii Hemsterhusii is composed with a degree of purity and elegance that is scarcely surpassed in the entire compass of modern Latinity; nor can it be affirmed that the Vita Davidis Ruhnkenii is unworthy of the subject, or of an author who had been trained in so excellent a school of philology.* But the slang of an English university, and all the proceedings in an English lawsuit, could not be exhibited with much grace in a Latin narrative; nor would foreigners feel much interest in some of the ample details for which we are indebted to the industry of Dr Monk. We are however far from asserting that his details, copious as they are, appear tedious or uninteresting to us : some of them are not a little curious in themselves, and they relate to a very singular personage. To the records of his college and university, the author had the most direct and easy access; and in examining the numerous publications of which Bentley was the subject or the author, he appears to have exercised a considerable degree of diligence.

* Wyttenbach's Latinity is not so unexceptionable as that of his preceptor and friend. He is too much inclined to introduce poetical phraseology, and he occasionally uses an unauthorized expression. To this class we refer such phrases as the following: "ut cum poeta loquar," "ut cum Tullio loquar." (Vita Ruhnkenii: Opuscula, tom i. p. 530, 548. Lugd. Bat. 1821, 2 tom. 8vo.) Similar phrases are of very frequent occurrence in modern writers, but we entertain strong doubts of their being justified by the authority of the ancients. Sir George Baker, one of the Cambridge classics, speaks in the same manner: "ut cum optimo Sydenhamo loquar." (Opuscula Medica, p. 137, edit. Lond. 1771, 8vo.)

His object, as he states in the preface, may be considered [as] threefold: first, to give a full and impartial view of Bentley's life and character; secondly, a sketch of literary his⚫tory during the period in which he flourished; and, thirdly, an account of what is worthy of notice in the annals of the college and university, for the first forty years of the eighteenth century.' Such a work, it is evident, must be most interesting to those who are connected with the University of Cambridge; but it is not without its attractions to those who feel any strong interest in the general history of literature. The name of Bentley, which occupies a very prominent place in the works of Pope, Swift, and other contemporary satirists, is familiarly known to multitudes who have no knowledge of his writings, or of his real character; and we may perhaps be considered as not unsuitably employed, if we attempt to exhibit a rapid sketch of his personal and literary history. Of the publication now before us, the text extends to no fewer than 668 pages, and these are succeeded by an appendix of 64 pages.

Richard Bentley, a native of Oulton in the parish of Rothwell and the West Riding of Yorkshire, was born on the 27th of January 1662. His lineage was neither so high nor so low as it has sometimes been represented his progenitors were of that respectable class which has supplied every profession with 'many of its brightest ornaments, the higher description of English yeomen.' During the civil wars, his grandfather, James Bentley, had been a captain in the royal army, and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, he ended his life as a prisoner in Pontefract Castle. His father, Thomas Bentley, who was the possessor of a small estate at Woodlesford, married, as his second wife, Sarah, the daughter of Richard Willie, a stonemason at Oulton; and their first child was the individual who afterwards rendered the family illustrious. For the first elements even of classical learning, he is said to have been indebted to his mother, who is described as a woman of an excellent understanding. After having been a day-scholar at the neighbouring hamlet of Methley, he was sent to the grammarschool of Wakefield, where John Potter, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, likewise received his early education. On the 24th of May 1676, he was entered as a subsizar of St John's College, which was then the largest in the University of Cambridge: his tutor was Joseph Johnston, and the master of the college Dr Francis Turner, afterwards Bishop of Ely. Of the peculiar direction of his academical studies, no record has been preserved: that he cultivated classical learning with great energy and perseverance, cannot well be doubted; and his biographer

is led to infer, that he was far from neglecting the mathematical sciences. We are reminded that the academical prizes which now serve to stimulate the exertions of students, had at that period no existence; but it is also necessary to recollect, that a mind constituted like that of Bentley required no stimulus of this ordinary nature. Youthful genius, when it enters upon its proper career, proceeds with an impulse that seems to be instinctive; and not unfrequently it nourishes a secret contempt for all those objects which are most attractive to minds of a secondary mould. Bentley, who was never oppressed with any distrust of his own powers or attainments, must speedily have felt a consciousness of superiority over all his classical instructors; and, like every other scholar who makes any bold excursions beyond the common limits, he must to a great extent have been his own preceptor.

Having continued at college for upwards of two years, he became a scholar on the foundation of Dr Dowman; and at the expiration of the third year, he succeeded to one of the Yorkshire scholarships, founded by Sir Marmaduke Constable. At the regular period, he commenced bachelor of arts, 'in company with a greater number of students than have ever since taken 'their degree at the same time, till the last two or three years.' In the list of honours, his place corresponds with that of third wrangler, according to the present distribution. From a fellowship of his college he was excluded by a provision in the statutes, which prohibited more than two fellows from being chosen from the same county. He was however appointed head-master of the grammar school of Spalding in Lincolnshire: the nomination to this office had lapsed to the college; and, as his biographer remarks, the commission of so important a trust to a youth who had only completed the twentieth year of his age, is not merely a testimony of his scholarship, but implies an opinion favourable to his general character. Ön attaining the age of majority, he disposed of his interest in the Oulton property to his brother James, the issue of their father's first marriage; and the money thus procured he devoted to the purchase of books, which are not less necessary to a scholar than tools to a carpenter. Bentley did not long retain the functions of a schoolmaster; for, after an interval of about twelve months, he became domestic tutor to the son of Dr Stillingfleet, dean of St Paul's, who had formerly been a fellow of St John's College. This situation was more favourable to the cultivation of his talents, and to his views of advancement in the clerical profession. Stillingfleet was himself a man of a large capacity, and was eminently distinguished by the extent and variety of his learning; he was

skilled in philology, history, divinity, and even in jurisprudence: he was one of the most able and zealous champions of the church of England at an alarming crisis; but he appeared to less advantage in bis philosophical contest with Locke, relating to subjects of which he had not attained to the same masterly knowledge. He was, besides, a person of an amiable disposition; and as his house was frequented by many eminent characters in the church and state, Bentley enjoyed new opportunities of enlarging the sphere of his observation; but he probably reckoned it a still greater advantage that he here enjoyed the use of one of the best private libraries in the world.' Along with this preferment, the dean held the rectory of St Andrew's, Holborn, and he chiefly resided in London. Bentley took the degree of master of arts in the month of July 1683, and his personal connexion with the university of Cambridge was afterwards discontinued for the space of seventeen years. In the meantime, he prosecuted his studies with great ardour and success: his favourite pursuits were evidently those of classical philology, but he did not neglect the study of the Oriental languages. Soon after the Revolution, the eminent merits of Dr Stillingfleet were rewarded with the bishopric of Worcester; and about the same period he sent his son James to the University of Oxford, where both he and his tutor became members of Wadham College. Bentley was incorporated master of arts on the fourth of July 1689. He lived on terms of intimacy with some of the most learned members of the university, particularly Humphrey Hody, fellow and tutor of Wadham, and afterwards professor of Greek, Dr Bernard, Savilian professor of astronomy, who with his skill in the exact sciences united a profound knowledge of ancient literature, and Dr Mill, principal of St Edmund's Hall, who is well known as the editor of the Greek Testament. But one of the chief attractions of the place was the Bodleian Library, with its copious stores of classical manuscripts. These he appears to have consulted with great diligence; and, among other proofs of his industry, we find that he collated three manuscripts of Hephaestion, an author to whom his attention was necessarily directed, in consequence of his early and deep researches on ancient metre. In the ardour of his youthful ambition, he projected editions of Greek grammarians and of Latin poets; he indeed pursued a course of study which gradually prepared him for any department of classical enterprise. The project which he now contemplated as the foundation of his fame, was a complete collection of the fragments of the Greek poets; an undertaking, as Dr Monk remarks, the magnitude and difficulty of which those only can appreciate, who have ever endeavoured