knowledge as applied to the Latin drama." Less important, though a very scholarly performance, is his edition of Manilius, which appeared in 1739. Manilius lived in the Augustan age, and wrote an epic on astronomy and astrology. His poem is not one of the most familiar classics, but is of sufficient interest to have been commented on in more recent times by the great English scholar Robinson Ellis.

Bentley also turned his attention to Homer. In 1713 he published "Remarks" on the Discourse of Free-thinking by Anthony Collins. Collins had asserted that Homer designed his poem for eternity, to please and to instruct mankind. But Bentley says:

Take my word for it, poor Homer in those circumstances and early times, had never such aspiring thoughts. He wrote a sequel of songs and rhapsodies, to be sung by himself for small earnings and good cheer, at festivals and other days of merriment; the "Iliad" he made for the men, and the "Odysseis" for the other sex. These loose songs were not collected together in the form of an epic poem until Pisistratus's time, above five hundred years after.

Here we have in a few words the germ of the theory which in the hands of F. A. Wolf and Lachmann was destined to lead to such important results. But the most important contribution which Bentley made to Homeric criticism was the restoration of the digamma. The ancient writers in a number of passages mentioned a letter which once existed in the Greek alphabet but had fallen into disuse. This letter resembled in shape our capital F, and was called digamma because it looked like two gammas, one superposed upon the other. Now, Bentley noticed that in certain cases in Homer a word ending in a vowel often stands before one beginning with a vowel without suffering elision. By prefixing the lost digamma to the second word the difficulty would be removed. Bentley, as was natural, pushed his discovery too far, and wished to insert the digamma in many places where it should not stand. "Ghost of a vanished letter which fitfully haunts its ancient seats" (Jebb). His theory aroused much ridicule, and Pope satirized it in the following lines (“Dunciad”):

Roman and Greek grammarians know your better,
Author of something yet more great than letter;
While tow'ring o'er your alphabet, like Saul,
Stands our digamma, and o'ertops them all.

But though Bentley went too far, scholars are now universally agreed that his restoration of the digamma was one of his most brilliant discoveries, and in this, as in many other matters, he was far in advance of his age.

We come now to one of the most important works undertaken by Bentley-his projected edition of the New Testament. From his early manhood he had been interested in the critical study of the biblical text, and had himself collated the Alexandrine manuscript, which was in the Royal Library. At what time he definitely decided to edit the New Testament is not known, but it was probably about 1716. It is said that the idea was first suggested to him by a Dutch scholar named Wetstein, who himself afterward edited the New Testament. In April, 1716, Bentley announced his intention to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to have favored the plan. For the next four years Bentley continued to gather materials, aided by Wetstein and John Walker. In 1620 the great critic published his Proposals for Printing, in which he stated the principles which he would follow in constituting the text. He was planning to obtain by comparison of the oldest manuscripts as perfect a text of the Latin Vulgate as possible; then by comparing this with the text of the oldest Greek manuscripts he hoped to reconstruct the text as it existed at the time of the Council of Nice (325 A. D.). He would employ also other versions (the Peshito, Coptic, Gothic, and Ethiopic) and the citations by the early Greek and Latin fathers. The money for defraying the expenses of publication was to be raised by public subscription, and over two thousand pounds was actually subscribed for that purpose. Bentley declared himself extremely conservative in regard to the Scripture text. Here he was no longer an a priori critic, but proceeded with the utmost caution. He promised not to alter one letter in the text on purely con

jectural grounds. For at least twelve years longer Bentley continued to labor at this gigantic task; but he never brought it to completion. His time was to a great extent occupied by lawsuits, and his health was growing feeble; but it is probable also that he saw that he had not sufficient data for the satisfactory solution of textual problems. He left his materials at his death to his nephew, Richard Bentley, and the latter left them to Trinity College, where they have since been preserved. They show an enormous amount of labor, and prove also that he was as conservative in dealing with the biblical text as he had been bold in dealing with that of the classical authors. The time had not yet come for a satisfactory edition of the New Testament. The manuscript material was only imperfectly known; Bentley had used the Codex Alexandrinus, and the Codex Vaticanus was collated for him; but the Codex Sinaiticus was not yet known to Western scholars, and the other great uncial codex, the Codex Ephraemi, he seems to have undervalued. But he inaugurated a new era in New Testament criticism by appealing from the textus receptus to the oldest manuscripts and in laying great stress upon the consent between the Latin version and the Greek manuscripts. In short, in this field, as in many others, he was a century in advance of his age.

Of Bentley's edition of "Paradise Lost" little need be said. It was undertaken at the suggestion of Queen Caroline, and is a curious monument of the frailty of human judgment. Bentley sets up the hypothesis that Milton's amanuensis in writing down the poem from the blind bard's lips made many mistakes and slips, and that afterward some friend of Milton edited the poem and grossly corrupted and depraved the text. Hence Bentley proceeds to emend "Paradise Lost" much as he did Horace or Terence. The changes are mostly in the direction of formal and prosaic accuracy; and Bentley has succeeded singularly in taking all the poetry out of many fine passages. Pope said that he "humbled Milton's strains," and spoke of "slashing Bentley with his desperate hook." In justice to him, however, it must be said that the book was

written in great haste, and that the field was an exceedingly unfavorable one for the display of his talents. He lived in an age which had not a taste for the Miltonic style, which loved the precise, pointed, and clear rather than the grand and lofty, and he was biased by the temper of the age. Moreover, it is not probable that he ever would have undertaken the task had not the queen requested him to do so. Indeed, in his preface he begs the reader to note that he has prepared the edition not without orders from his superiors.

Bentley's English style is most peculiar and characteristic. He does not use the stately periods so common at that time; his sentences are short, clear, and pointed, often strongly colloquial; yet when he pleases there is a great measure of dignity about them. They show that power of going straight to the root of the matter which is the keynote of his character. He prefers words of Latin origin; yet his style is rarely pedantic, and, when he pleases, no one can use the plain Anglo-Saxon words more effectively. He is somewhat careless of grammar, and his style is occasionally disfigured by Latinisms; but in this respect he is not more careless than most writers of his time. "At his best he is, in his own way, matchless; at his worst he is sometimes rough or clumsy; but he is never weak, and never anything else than natural."

In speaking of Bentley's life we have necessarily emphasized the harsher traits of his character. But he was not really harsh or cruel at heart. Many anecdotes of him are recorded which tend to prove this. His grandson tells us that when he in his childhood strayed into Bentley's study the great scholar would lay down his pen and try to amuse the little boy by showing him pictures. Once a burglar was caught stealing Bentley's plate. The local commissary

wanted to send him to jail; but Bentley interfered, and after administering such a reproof and admonition as he alone could give had the offender set at liberty. Bentley, though not prodigal, was by no means avaricious, and did not leave a large fortune. He lived in proper style and entertained liberally, but made no vain or extravagant display of luxury.

He often acted in a haughty and dictatorial way; but this is, no doubt, partly due to the hardships and humiliations of his youth. It is said that on one occasion he kept the Earl of Thomond and Bishop of Norwich waiting for a long time before he deigned to notice either of them. Pope, in the fourth book of the "Dunciad," twits him on his pride:

Before them marched that awful Aristarch;
Plowed was his front with many a deep remark.
His hat, which never vail'd to human pride,
Walker with reverence took and laid aside.

And, after all, was not his pride justified? When he faced haughty noblemen with a pride still more inflexible than theirs, and scarcely bowed before royalty itself, he was but teaching the world what it had for a time forgotten, that not birth nor wealth nor rank nor social influence combined can make a scholar; that there is an aristocracy of learning as exclusive as any aristocracy of wealth or descent. He was ever most ready to express the deepest veneration for true scholarship, and was most kind in advising and assisting young scholars. If in examining a student he found him confused and frightened, he did not proceed to crush him with the whole weight of his learning, but tried by questioning him gently and by explaining difficulties to restore his presence of mind. As a husband and father his conduct was exemplary, and his private life seems to have been spotless. (He learned to smoke at the age of seventy.)

Bentley was something of a wit. Like nearly all men in his time, he drank wine, and is reported to have said of claret that "it would be port if it could." His remark about Pope's Homer, "A pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer," is familiar. Once an alleged atheist, a fellow of the college, was brought before him for trial. On seeing the aceused Bentley exclaimed, "What, is that the atheist? I expected to have seen a man as big as Burrough the beadle!" During his lawsuits he sometimes gave passages suitable to the occasion to his students as subjects for themes; so when deposed from the mastership of Trinity he assigned Terence,