that I should now tremble at the very apprehensions of seeing a man, and was ready to sink into the ground at but the shadow or silent appearance of a man's having set his foot in the island.

Such is the uneven state of human life and it afforded me a great many curious speculations afterwards when I had a little recovered my first surprise; I considered that this was the station of life the infinitely wise and good Providence of God had determined for me; that as I could not foresee what the ends of Divine Wisdom might be in all this, so I was not to dispute His Sovereignty, who, as I was His creature, had an undoubted right by creation to govern and dispose of me absolutely as He thought fit; and who, as I was a creature who had offended Him, had likewise a judicial right to condemn me to what punishment He thought fit; and that it was my part to submit to bear His indignation, because I had sinned against him.

I then reflected that God, who was not only righteous but omnipotent, as He had thought fit thus to punish and afflict me, so He was able to deliver me; that if He did not think fit to do it, 'twas my unquestioned duty to resign myself absolutely and entirely to His will; and on the other hand, it was my duty also to hope in Him, pray to Him, and quietly to attend the dictates and directions of His daily Providence.

These thoughts took me up many hours, days, nay, I may say, weeks and months; and one particular effect of my cogitations on this occasion, I cannot omit, viz. One morning early, lying in my bed, and filled with thought about my danger from the appearance of savages, I found it discomposed me very much; upon which those words of the Scripture came into my thoughts, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver, and thou shalt glorify me.'

Upon this, rising cheerfully out of my bed, my heart was not only comforted, but I was guided and encouraged to pray earnestly to God for deliverance. When I had done praying, I took up my. Bible, and opening it to read, the first words that presented to me, were, "Wait on the Lord, and be of good cheer, and he shall strengthen thy heart; wait, I say on the Lord." It is impossible to express the comfort this gave me. In answer, I thankfully laid down the book, and was no more sad, at least, not on that occasion. (From Robinson Crusoe.)

BENTLEY

[Richard Bentley was born in 1662: educated at Wakefield Grammar School, whence he proceeded to St. John's College, Cambridge, at the age of fourteen and after taking his degree became tutor in the family of Stillingfleet, then Dean of St. Paul's. He took orders in 1690, and in 1691 wrote his Latin letter to Dr. Mill, on the Chronicle of Malelas, which marked him out as the first scholar of his day. In this and the following year he delivered the first course of the Boyle lectures in defence of Christianity, and in its preparation, mastered, with singular power, the leading points in Newton's system. He was appointed keeper of the Royal Libraries in 1694, and after being concerned in the controversy between Temple and Boyle on the one side and Wotton on the other, in regard to the so-called Letters of Phalaris, he was appointed Master of Trinity, Cambridge, in 1699. His career there was one long struggle between himself and the Fellows. In 1711 he published his Horace in 1726 his Terence: and in 1732 a critical edition of Paradise Lost. He died in 1742.]

BENTLEY'S title to fame is based on his work as a grammarian, a commentator, and a critic: but notwithstanding singular aberrations of taste (which are seen chiefly in his emendations on Horace and Milton), his work in that field is so consummate, and it so completely out-distanced that of all his contemporaries, that it has gained for him an indisputable place in our literary annals. As a scholar, his chief work was a critical emendation of the classical texts. His aim was not so much to catch the beauties of form as to attain to rigid and logical accuracy. To this end he furnished himself, by enormous industry, with an apparatus of knowledge to which none of his contemporaries could pretend ; and he was able to apply this with all the vigour of a mind singularly alert and elastic, and a most incisive logical faculty. For the slovenly scholarship which thought it was enough to catch something of the spirit and motive underlying the masterpieces of classical antiquity, he had no tolerance and no patience and his controversial methods are often rough and merciless, but always

lively, vigorous, and masterful. They are seen at their best in the Dissertation upon Phalaris, which was his contribution to the controversy on the merits of ancients and moderns: and in his Remarks on the Discourse of Free-thinking (by Collins—the luckless sceptic who found himself the butt at once of Swift's sarcasm and of Bentley's argument).

Bentley, like some of the scholars of an earlier age, prompted perhaps by the desire to avoid any classical pedantry, affected a style which was homely and colloquial even to the verge of vulgarity. He was accused by his opponents of " descending to low and mean ways of speech," and the accusation is not entirely unjust. But as Professor Jebb says, "his style is thoroughly individual: it is, in fact, the man (His English) has

the tone of a strong mind which goes straight to the truth: it is pointed with the sarcasm of one whose own knowledge is thorough and exact, but who is accustomed to find imposture wrapped up in fine or vague words, and takes an ironical delight in using the very homeliest images and phrases, which accurately fit the matter in hand."

H. CRAIK.

AN APOLOGY FOR RESENTMENT

I WILL here crave the reader's leave to make one general apology for anything, either in my Dissertation or my Defence of it, that may seem too severe. I desire but this favour, or justice rather, that he would suppose my case to be his own: and then, if he will say sincerely, that he should have answered so many calumnies with fewer marks of resentment, I am content to lie under his censure. But it is a very difficult thing for a person unconcerned and out of the reach of harm, to be a fair arbitrator here. He will be apt to think the injured party too angry; because he cannot have as great a passion in seeing the ill-usage, as the other has in feeling it. Even Job himself, with all his patience, was accused of losing his temper by his companions that had no share in his sufferings. Besides, there is a common fault in human nature, which I crave leave to express in Greek, éπiɣaipekakía. There is a secret pleasure, they say, in seeing another man under the risk of a shipwreck, while one's self is safe on the shore; and so we find the world is delighted to see one worried and run down, while themselves are made the spectators, and entertained with the diversion. 'Twas an excellent saying of Solon's, and worthy of the wisest of the famous seven; who, when he was asked, Πῶς ἥκιστα ἀδικοῖεν οἱ ἄνθρωποι; What would rid the world of injuries? If the bystanders, says he, would have the same resentment with those that suffer the wrong; Ei oμoíws ἄχθοιντο τοῖς ἀδικουμένοις οἱ μὴ ἀδικούμενοι. If the reader will but follow that great man's advice, and have an equal sense of ill-usage as if it had fallen upon himself; I dare then challenge him to think, if he can, that I have used too much severity.

I do not love the unmanly work of making long complaints of injuries; which, I think, is the next fault to deserving them. Much less will I imitate Mr. B.,1 who has raked together those few words of my Dissertation that had the least air of resentment, 1 Mr. Boyle.