I never anfwer'd, I was not in debt. If want provok'd, or madness made them print, 155 Did fome more fober Critic come abroad; NOTES. 160 VER. 163. these ribalds.) How defervedly this title is given to the genius of PHILOLOGY, may be feen by a fhort account of the manners of the modern Scholiafts. When in thefe latter ages, human learning raised its head in the weft. and its tail, verbal criticism, was, of course, to rife with it; the madness of Critics foon became fo offenfive; that the fober ftupidity of the monks might appear the more tolerable evil. J. Argyropylus, a mercenary Greek, who came to teach fchool in Italy, after the facking of Conftantinople by the Turks, used to maintain that Cicero understood neither Philofophy nor Greek while another of his Countrymen, 3. Lascaris by name, threatened to demonftrate that Virgil was no Poet. Countenanced by fuch great examples, a French Critic afterwards undertook to prove that Aristotle did not underfland Greek, nor Titus Livius, Latin. It was the fame difcernment of spirit, which has fince difcovered that, Josephus was ignorant of Hebrew; and Erasmus fo pitiful a Linguift, that, Burman affures us, were he now alive, he would not deferve to be put at the head of a country school. For, though time has ftrip'd the prefent race of Pedants of all the real accomplishments of their predeceffors, it has conveyed down this fpirit to them, unimpaired; is being found much easier to ape their manners, than to imitate their fcience. However, thofe earlier Ribaids raifed an appetite for the Greek language in the Weft: infomuch, that Her. molaus Barbarus, a paffionate admirer of it, and a noted Critic, From flashing Bentley down to pidling Tibalds : and ufed to boast, that he had invoked and raised the Devil, puzzled him into the bargain, about the meaning of the Ariftotelian ΕΝΤΕΛΕΧΕΙΑ. Another, whom Balzac speaks of, was as eminent for his Revelations : and was wont to, fay, that the meaning of fuch a verfe, in Perfius, no one knew but GOD and himself. While the celebrated Pomponius Latus, in excess of Veneration for Antiquity, became a real Pagan, raised altars to Romulus, and facrificed to the Gods of Latium: in which he was followed by our countryman, Baxter, in every thing, but in the expence of his facrinces. But if the Greeks cried down Cicero, the Italian Critics knew how to fupport his credit. Every one has heard of the childish exceffes into which the ambition of being thought CICERONIANS carried the most celebrated Italians of this time. They abstained from reading the Scriptures for fear of spoiling their style: Cardinal Bembo used to call the Epiftles of St. Paul by the contemptuous name of Epiftolaccias, great overgrown Epifiles. ERASMUS cured their frenzy in that masterpiece of good fenfe, his Ciceronians. For which (in the way Lunatics treat their Phyficians) the elder Scaliger infulted him with all the brutal fury peculiar to his family and profession. Kur His fon Jofeph, and Salmafius had indeed fuch endowments of nature and art, as might have railed modern learning to a rivalfhip with the ancient. Yet how did they and their adverfaries tear and worry one another? The choiceft of Jofeph's flowers of It is fpeech were, Stercus Diaboli, and Lutum fiercore maceratum, rue, these were lavifhed upon his enemies: for his friends he had other things in fore. In a letter to Thuanus, fpeaking of two of them; Clavius and Lipfius, he calls the first, a monster of ignorance; and the other, flave to the Jesuits, and an Idiot. Bút fo great was his love of facred amity at the fame time, that he fays, I still keep up my correspondence with him, notwithstanding his Idiotry, for it is my principle to be conflant in my friendships → Je ne reste de luy eferire, nonobftant fon Idioterie, d'autant que je fuiz constant en amitié. The character he gives of his own Chronology, in the fame letter, is no less extraordinary: Vous vous pouvez assurer Each Word catcher, that lives on fyllables, Ev'n fuch fmall Critics fome regard may claim, NOTES. i 166 que noflre Eufebe fera un tréfor des merveilles de la doctrine Chronologique. But this modeft account of his own work, is nothing in comparison of the idea the Father gives his Bockfeller of his own Perfon. Who, when he was preparing fomething of Julius Scaliger's for the Frefs, defired the Authors would give him directions concerning his Picture, which was to be fet before the book, Whose answer (as it ftands in his collection of Letters) is, that if the engraver could collect together the feveral graces of Maffinisa, Xenophon, and Flato, he might then be enabled to give, the public fome faint and imperfect resemblance of his Perfon. Nor was Salmafius's judgment of his own parts lefs favourable to himself; as Mr. Colomics tells the story. This Critic, on a time, meeting two of his brethren, Mess. Gaulmin and Maussac, in the Royal Library at Paris, Gaylmin, in a virtuous consciousness of their Importance, told the other two, that he believed, they three could make head against all the learned in Europe: To which the great Salmafius fiercely replied, "Do you and M. Mauffac join yourselves to all that are learned in the world, and you fhail find that I alone am a match for you all.,, Voffius tells us, that when Lqur. Valla had fnarl'd at every name of the first order in antiquity, fuch as Ariftotle, Cicero, 2nd one whom I should have thought this Critic the likelieft to spare, the redoubtable PRISGIAN, he impioufly boasted that he had arms even against Christ himself, But Codrus Urceus went further, and actually used those arms the other only threatened with. This man while he was preparing fome trifling piece of Criticism for the prefs, had the misfortune to hear his papers were destroyed by fire; On which he is reported to have broke out - ,,Quod,,nam ego tantum fcelus concepi, O Chrifte! quem 'ego tuorum „unquam læfi, ut ita inexpiabili in me odio debaccheris? Audi ea quæ tibi mentis compos, & ex animo dicam. Si forte, cum' ,,ad ultimum vitæ finem pervenero, fupplex accedam ad te cratum, ,,neve audias, neve inter tuos accipias oro; cum Infernis Diis in æternum vitam agere decrevi.,, Whereupon, fays my author, he quitted the converse of men, threw himself into the thickest of a forest, and wore out the wretched remainder of his life in all the agonies of despair. Preferv'd in Milton's or in Shakespear's name. 169 Of hairs, or ftraws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things we know,' are neither rich nor rare, 171 But wonder how the devil they got there. Were others angry: I excus'd them too; Well might they rage, I gave them but their due. › A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find ; NOTES. 175 VER. 164. Slashing Bentley) This great man, tho' with all his faults, deferved to be put into better company, The following words of Cicero defcribe him not amifs. Habuir a na,,tura genus quoddam acuminis, quod etiam arte limaverat, ,,quod erat in reprehendendis verbis verfutum & follers: fed ,,fepe ftomachofum, nonnunquam frigidum, interdum etiam fa ,,cetum.,, The VER. 169. Pretty! in amber to obferve the forms, &c.) Our Poet had the full pleasure of this amufement soon after the pu blication of his Shakespear. Nor has his Friend been lefs entertai ned fince the appearance of his edition of the fame poet. liquid Amber of whofe Wit has lately licked up, and enrolled fuch a quantity of these Infects, and of tribes fo grotefque and various, as would have puzzled Reaumur to give names to. Two or three of them it may not be amifs to preferve and keep alive. Such as the Rev. Mr. J. Upton, Thomas Edwards, Efq. and, to make up the Triumvirate, their learned' Coadjutor, that very refpectable perfonage, Mr. THEOPHILUS CIBBER. As to the poetic imagery of this paffage, it has been much and iuftly admired; for the most deteftable things in nature, as a toad, or 1 beetle, become pleafing when well reprefented in a work of Art. But it is no less eminent for the beauty of the thought, For though a fctibler exifts by being thus incorporated, yet he exifts intombed, a lafting monument of the wrath of the Muses. Were others angry :) The Poets. VER. 173. - VER, 174. — I gave them but their due.) Our Author always found thofe he commended lefs fenfible then those he reproved. The reafon is plain. He gave the latter but their due; and the other thought they had no more. 180 But each man's fecret ftandard in his mind, VER. 180. NOTES. 190 Perfian tale.) Amb. Philips tranflated a Book called the Persian tales. VER. 186. Means not, but blunders round about a meaning :) A cafe common both to Poets and Critics of a certain order; only with this difference, that the Poet writes himself out of his own meaning; and the Critic never gets into another man's. Yet both keep going on, and blundering round about their fubiect, as benighted people are wont to do, who feek for an entrance which they cannot find. See VER. 189. All these, my modest Satire bad translate,) their works, in the Tranflations of claffical books by several hands. VER. 190. nine fuch Poets, c.) Alluding, not to the nine Mufes, but to nine Taylors. VER. 192. And swear, not ADDISON himself was fate.) This is an artful, preparative for the following transition; and finely obviates what might be thought unfavourably of the severity of the fatire, by those who were ftrangers to the provocation. |