Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

BENTLEY, RICHARD (1662-1742)

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 752 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
» Make a correction to this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

See also:

BENTLEY, See also:RICHARD (1662-1742) , See also:English See also:scholar and critic, was See also:born at Oulton near See also:Wakefield, See also:Yorkshire, on the 27th of See also:January 1662. His grandfather had suffered in See also:person and See also:estate in the royalist cause, and the See also:family were in See also:con-sequence in reduced circumstances. Bentley's See also:mother, the daughter of a stonemason in Oulton, was a woman of excellent understanding and some See also:education, as she was able to give her son his first lessons in Latin. From the See also:grammar school of Wakefield Richard Bentley passed to St See also:John's See also:College, See also:Cam-See also:bridge, being admitted subsizar in 1676. He afterwards obtained a scholarship and toot the degree of B.A. in 1680 (M.A. 1683). He never succeeded to a fellowship, being appointed by his college, before he was twenty-one, headmaster of See also:Spalding grammar school. In this See also:post he did not remain See also:long, being selected by Dr See also:Edward See also:Stillingfleet, See also:dean of St See also:Paul's, to be domestic See also:tutor to his son. This See also:appointment introduced Bentley at once to the society of the most eminent men of the See also:day, threw open to him the best private library in See also:England, and brought him into See also:familiar intercourse with Dean Stillingfleet, a See also:man of See also:sound understanding, who had not shrunk from exploring some of the more solid and abstruse parts of See also:ancient learning. The six years which he passed in Stillingfleet's family were employed, with the restless See also:energy characteristic of the man, in exhausting the remains of the See also:Greek and Latin writers, and laying up those stores of knowledge upon which he afterwards See also:drew as circumstances required. In 1689 Stillingfleet became See also:bishop of See also:Worcester, and Bentley's See also:pupil went to reside at See also:Oxford in Wadham College, accompanied by his tutor. Bentley's introductions and his own merits-BENTLEY, R.

placed him at once on a footing of intimacy with the most distinguished scholars in the university, Dr John See also:

Mill, See also:Humphrey See also:Hody, Edward See also:Bernard. Here he revelled in the MS. treasures of the Bodleian, Corpus and other college See also:libraries. He projected and occupied himself with collections for vast See also:literary schemes. Among these are specially mentioned a corpus of the fragments of the Greek poets and an edition of the Greek lexicographers. But his first publication was in connexion with a writer of much inferior See also:note. The Oxford (Sheldonian) See also:press was about to bring out an edition (the editio princeps) from the unique MS. in the Bodleian of the Greek See also:Chronicle (a universal See also:history down to A.D. 56o) of John of See also:Antioch (date uncertain, between 600 and r000), called John See also:Malalas or " John the Rhetor "; and the editor, Dr John Mill, See also:principal of St See also:Edmund See also:Hall, had requested Bentley to look through the sheets and make any remarks on the See also:text. This originated Bentley's Epistola ad Milliurn, which occupies less than one See also:hundred pages at the end of the Oxford Malalas (1691). This See also:short tractate at once placed Bentley at the See also:head of all living English scholars. The ease with which, by a stroke of the See also:pen, he restores passages which had been See also:left in hopeless corruption by the editors of the Chronicle, the certainty of the emendation and the command over the relevant material, are in a See also:style totally different from the careful and laborious learning of Hody, Mill or E. Chilmead. To the small circle of classical students (lacking the See also:great See also:critical dictionaries of See also:modern times) it was at once apparent that there had arisen in England a critic whose attainments were not to be measured by the See also:ordinary academical See also:standard, but whom these few pages had sufficed to See also:place by the See also:side of the great Grecians of a former See also:age.

Unfortunately this mastery over critical See also:

science was accompanied by a See also:tone of self-assertion and pre-sumptuous confidence which not only checked admiration, but was calculated to rouse enmity. Dr See also:Monk, indeed, Bentley's biographer, charged him (in his first edition, 1830) with an indecorum of which he was not guilty. " In one place," writes Dr Monk, " he accosts Dr Mill as W 'Iwavvthiov (Johnny), an indecorum which neither the familiarity of friendship, nor the See also:licence of a dead See also:language, can justify towards the dignified head of a See also:house." But the See also:object of Bentley's See also:apostrophe was not his correspondent Dr Mill, but his author John Malalas, whom in another place he playfully appeals to as " Syrisce." From this publication, however, See also:dates the origin of those mixed feelings of admiration and repugnance which Bentley throughout his career continued to excite among his contemporaries. In 1690 Bentley had taken See also:deacon's orders in the See also:Church. In 1692 he was nominated first See also:Boyle lecturer, a nomination which was repeated in 1694. He was offered the appointment a third See also:time in 1695 but declined it, being by that time involved in too many other undertakings. In the first See also:series of lectures (" A Confutation of See also:Atheism ") he endeavours to See also:present the Newtonian physics in a popular See also:form, and to See also:frame them (especially in opposition to See also:Hobbes) into a See also:proof of the existence of an intelligent Creator. He had some See also:correspondence with See also:Newton, then living in Trinity College, on the subject. The second series, preached in 1694, has not been published and is believed to be lost. See also:Andrew See also:Kippis, the editor of the Biographia Britannica, mentions MS. copies of them as in existence. Scarcely was Bentley in See also:priest's orders before he was preferred to a prebendal See also:stall in Worcester See also:cathedral. In 1693 the keepership of the royal library becoming vacant, great efforts were made by his See also:friends to obtain the place for Bentley, but through See also:court See also:interest the post was given to Mr Thynne.

An arrangement, however, was made, by which the new librarian resigned in favour of Bentley, on See also:

condition that he received an See also:annuity of £130 for See also:life out of the See also:salary, which only amounted to £200. To these preferments were added in 1695 a royal chaplaincy and the living of Hartlebury. In the same See also:year Bentley was elected a See also:fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1696 proceeded to the degree of D.D. The recognition of See also:continental scholars came in the shape of a See also:dedication, by See also:Graevius, prefixed to a dissertation of See also:Albert See also:Rubens, De Vita Flavii Mallii Theodori, published at See also:Utrecht in 1694. While these distinctions were being accumulated upon Bentley, his energy was making itself See also:felt in many and various directions. He had See also:official apartments in St See also:James's See also:Palace, and his first care was the royal library. He made great efforts to retrieve this collection from the dilapidated condition into which it had been allowed to fall. He employed the See also:mediation of the See also:earl of See also:Marlborough to beg the See also:grant of some additional rooms in the palace for the books. The rooms were granted, but Marlborough characteristically kept them for himself. Bentley enforced the See also:law against the publishers, and thus added to the library nearly l000 volumes which they had neglected to deliver. He was commissioned by the university of See also:Cambridge to obtain Greek and Latin founts for their classical books, and accordingly he had See also:cast in See also:Holland those beautiful types which appear in the Cambridge books of that date. He assisted See also:Evelyn in his Numismata.

All Bentley's literary appearances at this time were of this accidental See also:

character. We do not find him settling down to the steady See also:execution of any of the great projects with which he had started. He designed, indeed, in 1694 an edition of See also:Philostratus, but readily abandoned it to G. Olearius, (Ohlschlager), " to the joy," says F. A. See also:Wolf, " of Olearius and of no one else." He supplied Graevius with collations of See also:Cicero, and See also:Joshua See also:Barnes with a warning as to the spuriousness of the Epistles of See also:Euripides, which was thrown away upon that blunderer, who printed the epistles and declared that no one could doubt their genuineness but a man perfrictae frontis See also:aut judicii imminuti. Bentley supplied to Graevius's See also:Callimachus a masterly collection of the fragments with notes, published at Utrecht in 1697. The Dissertation on the Epistles of See also:Phalaris, the See also:work on which Bentley's fame in great See also:part rests, originated in the same casual way. See also:William See also:Wotton, being about to bring out in 1697 a second edition of his See also:book on Ancient and Modern Learning, claimed of Bentley the fulfilment of an old promise to write a See also:paper exposing the spuriousness of the Epistles of Phalaris. This paper was resented as an insult by the See also:Christ Church editor of Phalaris, See also:Charles Boyle, afterwards earl of See also:Orrery, who in getting the MS. in the royal library collated for his edition (1695) had had a little See also:quarrel with Bentley. Assisted by his college friends, particularly See also:Atterbury, Boyle wrote a reply, " a See also:tissue," says Dr See also:Alexander See also:Dyce (in his edition of Bentley's See also:Works, 1836-1838), " of superficial learning, ingenious sophistry, dexterous malice and happy raillery." The reply was hailed by the public as crushing and went immediately into a second edition. It was See also:incumbent on Bentley to rejoin.

This he did (1699) in what See also:

Porson styles " that immortal dissertation," to which no See also:answer was or could be given, although the truth of its conclusions was,not immediately recognized. (See PHIALARIS.) In the year 1700 Bentley received that See also:main preferment which, says De Quincey, " was at once his See also:reward and his See also:scourge for the See also:rest of his life." The six commissioners of ecclesiastical patronage unanimously recommended Bentley to the See also:crown for the See also:master-See also:ship of Trinity College, Cambridge. This college, the most splendid See also:foundation in the university of Cambridge, and in the scientific and literary reputation of its See also:fellows the most eminent society in either university, had in 1700 greatly fallen from its high estate. It was not that it was more degraded than the other colleges, but its former lustre made the abuse of endowments in its See also:case more conspicuous. The See also:eclipse had taken place during the reaction which followed 166o, and was owing to causes which were not See also:peculiar to Trinity, but which influenced the nation at large. The names of John See also:Pearson and See also:Isaac See also:Barrow, and, greater than either, that of Newton, adorn the college See also:annals of this See also:period. But these were quite exceptional men. They had not inspired the See also:rank and See also:file of fellows of Trinity with any of their own love for learning or science. Indolent and easy-going clerics, without duties, without a pursuit or any consciousness of the See also:obligation of endowments, they haunted the college for the pleasant life and the See also:good things they found there, creating See also:sinecure offices in each other's favour, jobbing the scholarships and making the audits mutually pleasant. Any excuse served for a banquet at the cost of " the house," and the See also:celibacy imposed by the statutes was made as tolerable as the decorumof a respectable position permitted. To such a society Bentley came, See also:obnoxious as a St John's man and an intruder, unwelcome as a man of learning whose interests See also:lay outside the walls of the college. Bentley replied to their concealed dislike with open contempt, and proceeded to ride roughshod over their little arrangements.

He inaugurated many beneficial reforms in college usages and discipline, executed extensive improvements in the buildings, and generally used his eminent station for the promotion of the interests of learning both in the college and in the university. But this energy was accompanied by a domineering See also:

temper, an overweening contempt for the feelings and even for the rights of others, and an unscrupulous use of means when a good end could be obtained. Bentley, at the See also:summit of classical learning, disdained to See also:associate with men whom he regarded as illiterate priests. He treated them with contumely, while he was diverting their income to public purposes. The continued drain upon their purses—on one occasion the whole See also:dividend of the year was absorbed by the rebuilding of the chapel—was the grievance which at last roused the fellows to make a resolute stand. After ten years of stubborn but ineffectual resistance within the college, they had recourse in 1710 to the last remedy—an See also:appeal to the visitor, the bishop of See also:Ely (Dr See also:Moore). Their See also:petition is an See also:ill-See also:drawn invective, full of See also:general complaints and not alleging any See also:special delinquency. Bentley's reply (The Present See also:State of Trinity College, &c., 171o) is in his most crushing style. The fellows amended their petition and put in a fresh See also:charge, in which they articled fifty-four See also:separate breaches of the statutes as having been committed by the master. Bentley, called upon to answer, demurred to the bishop of Ely's See also:jurisdiction, alleging that the crown was visitor. He backed his application by a dedication of his See also:Horace to the See also:lord treasurer (Harley). The crown lawyers decided the point against him; the case was heard (1714) and a See also:sentence of ejection from the mastership ordered to be drawn up, but before it was executed the bishop of Ely died and the See also:process lapsed.

The See also:

feud, however, still went on in various forms. In 1718 Bentley was deprived by the university of his degrees, as a See also:punishment for failing to appear in the See also:vice-See also:chancellor's court in a See also:civil suit; and it was not till 1724 that the law compelled the university to restore them. In 1733 he was again brought to trial before the bishop of Ely (Dr See also:Greene) by the fellows of Trinity and was sentenced to deprivation, but the college statutes required the sentence to be exercised by the vice-master (Dr See also:Walker), who was Bentley's friend and refused to See also:act. In vain were attempts made to compel the execution of the sentence, and though the feud was kept up till 1738 or 1740 (about See also:thirty years in all) Bentley remained undisturbed. During the period of his mastership, with the exception of the first two years, Bentley pursued his studies uninterruptedly, although the results in the shape of published works seem incommensurable. In 1709 he contributed a critical appendix to John See also:Davies's edition of Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. In the following year he published his emendations on the See also:Plutus and Nubes of See also:Aristophanes, and on the fragments of See also:Menander and See also:Philemon. The last came out under the name of " Phileleutherus Lipsiensis," which he made use of two years later in his Remarks on a See also:late Discourse of Freethinking, a reply to See also:Anthony See also:Collins the deist. For this he received the thanks of the university, in recognition of the service thereby rendered to the church and See also:clergy. His Horace, long contemplated and in the end written in very great haste and brought out to propitiate public See also:opinion at a critical period of the Trinity quarrel, appeared in 1711. In the See also:preface he declared his intention of confining his See also:attention to See also:criticism and correction of the text, and ignoring exegesis. Some of his 700 or Soo emendations have been accepted, but the See also:majority of them are now rejected as unnecessary and prosaic, although the learning and ingenuity shown in their support are remarkable.

In 1716, in a See also:

letter to Dr See also:Wake, See also:archbishop of See also:Canterbury, he announced his See also:design of preparing a critical edition of the New Testament. During the next four years, assisted by J. J. See also:Wetstein, an eminent biblical critic, who claimed to have been the first to suggest the See also:idea to Bentley, he collected materials for the work, and in 1720 published Proposals for a New Edition of the Greek Testament, with specimens of the manner in which he intended to carry it out. He proposed, by comparing the text of the See also:Vulgate with that of the See also:oldest Greek See also:MSS., to restore the Greek text as received by the church at the time of the See also:council of See also:Nice. A large number of subscribers to the work was obtained, but it was never completed. His See also:Terence (1726) is more important than his Horace, and it is upon this, next to the Phalaris, that his reputation mainly rests. Its See also:chief value consists in the novel treatment of the metrical questions and their bearing on the emendation of the text. To the same year belong the Fables of See also:Phaedrus and the Sententiae of Publius Syrus. The See also:Paradise Lost (1732), undertaken at the See also:suggestion of See also:Queen See also:Caroline, is generally regarded as the most unsatisfactory of all his writings. It is marred by the same rashness in emendation and lack of poetical feeling as his Horace; but there is less excuse for him in this case, since the English text could not offer the same See also:field for conjecture. He put forward the idea that See also:Milton employed both an See also:amanuensis and an editor, who were to be held responsible for the clerical errors, alterations and interpolations which Bentley professed to detect.

It is uncertain whether this was a See also:

device on the part of Bentley to excuse his own numerous corrections, or whether he really believed in the existence of this editor. Of the contemplated edition of See also:Homer nothing was published; all that remains of it consists of some See also:manuscript and marginal notes in the See also:possession of Trinity College. Their chief importance lies in the See also:attempt to restore the See also:metre by the insertion of the lost digamma. Among his See also:minor works may be mentioned: the Astronomica of See also:Manilius (1739), for which he had been See also:collecting materials since 1691; a letter on the Sigean inscription on a See also:marble slab found in the See also:Troad, now in the See also:British Museum; notes on the Theriaca of See also:Nicander and on See also:Lucan, published after his See also:death by See also:Cumberland; emendations of See also:Plautus (in his copies of the See also:editions by Pareus, See also:Camerarius and See also:Gronovius, edited by See also:Schroder, 1880, and Sonnenschein, 1883). Bentleii Critica Sacra (1862), edited by A. A. See also:Ellis, contains the See also:epistle to the See also:Galatians (and excerpts), printed from an inter-leaved See also:folio copy of the Greek and Latin Vulgate in Trinity College. A collection of his Opuscula Philologica was published at See also:Leipzig in 1781. The edition of his works by Dyce (1836–1838) is incomplete. He had married in 1701 See also:Joanna, daughter of See also:Sir John Bernard of See also:Brampton in See also:Huntingdonshire. Their See also:union lasted See also:forty years. Mrs Bentley died in 1740, leaving a son, Richard, and two daughters, one of whom married in 1728 Mr See also:Denison Cumberland, See also:grandson of Richard Cumberland, bishop of See also:Peter-See also:borough.

Their son was Richard Cumberland, the dramatist. Surrounded by his grandchildren, Dr Bentley experienced the See also:

joint pressure of age and infirmity as lightly as is consistent with the See also:lot of humanity. He continued to amuse himself with See also:reading; and though nearly confined to his See also:arm-See also:chair, was able to enjoy the society of his friends and several rising scholars, J. See also:Markland, John See also:Taylor, his nephews Richard and See also:Thomas Bentley, with whom he discussed classical subjects. He was accustomed to say that he should live to be eighty, adding that a life of that duration was long enough to read everything See also:worth reading. He fulfilled his own prediction, dying of See also:pleurisy on the 14th of See also:July 1942. Though accused by his enemies of being grasping, he left not more than LS000 behind him. A few Greek MSS., brought from See also:Mount See also:Athos, he left to the college library; his books and papers to his See also:nephew, Richard Bentley. Richard, who was a fellow of Trinity, at his death in 1786 left the papers to the college library. The books, containing in many cases valuable manuscript notes, were See also:purchased by the British Museum. Of his See also:personal habits some anecdotes are related by his grandson, Richard Cumberland, in vol. i. of his See also:Memoirs (1807). The See also:hat of formidable dimensions, which he always wore during reading to shade his eyes, and his preference of See also:port to See also:claret (which he said " would be port if it could ") are traits embodied in See also:Pope's See also:caricature (Dunciad, b.

4), which bears in other respects little resemblance to the See also:

original. He did not take up the habitof smoking till he was seventy. He held the archdeaconry of Ely with two livings, but never obtained higher preference in the church. He was offered the (then poor) bishopric of See also:Bristol but refused it, and being asked what preferment he would consider worth his See also:acceptance, replied, " That which would leave him no See also:reason to wish for a removal." Bentley was the first, perhaps the only, Englishman who can be ranked with the great heroes of classical learning, although perhaps not a great classical scholar. Before him there were only John See also:Selden, and, in a more restricted field, Thomas See also:Gataker and Pearson. But Selden, a man of stupendous learning, wanted the freshness of original See also:genius and confident mastery over the whole region of his knowledge. " Bentley inaugurated a new era of the See also:art of criticism. He opened a new path. With him criticism attained its majority. Where scholars had hitherto offered suggestions and conjectures, Bentley, with unlimited See also:control over the whole material of learning, gave decisions " (Mahly). The modern See also:German school of See also:philology does ungrudging See also:homage to his genius. Bentley, says See also:Bunsen, " was the founder of See also:historical philology." And See also:Jakob See also:Bernays says of his corrections of the Tristia, " corruptions which had hitherto defied every attempt even of the mightiest, were removed by a See also:touch of the fingers of this British See also:Samson." The English school of Hellenists, by which the 18th See also:century was distinguished, and which contains the names of R.

See also:

Dawes, J. Markland, J. Taylor, J. See also:Toup, T. See also:Tyrwhitt, Richard Porson, P. P. See also:Dobree, Thomas See also:Kidd and J. H. Monk, was the creation of Bentley. And even the Dutch school of the same period, though the outcome of a native tradition, was in no small degree stimulated and directed by the example of Bentley, whose letters to the See also:young See also:Hemsterhuis on his edition of See also:Julius See also:Pollux produced so powerful an effect on him, that he became one of Bentley's most devoted admirers. Bentley was a source of See also:inspiration to a following See also:generation of scholars. Himself, he sprang from the See also:earth without forerunners, without antecedents.

Self-taught, he created his own science. It was his misfortune that there was no contemporary gild of learning in England by which his See also:

power could be measured, and his eccentricities checked. In the Phalaris controversy his academical adversaries had not sufficient knowledge to know how See also:absolute their defeat was. See also:Garth's See also:couplet " So diamonds take a lustre from their See also:foil, And to a Bentley 'tis we owe a Boyle " expressed the belief of the wits or literary See also:world of the time. The attacks upon him by Pope, John See also:Arbuthnot and others are See also:evidence of their inability to appreciate his work. To them, textual criticism seemed See also:mere pedantry and useless labour. It was not only that he had to live with inferiors, and to See also:waste his energy in a struggle forced upon him by the necessities of his official position, but the wholesome stimulus of competition and the encouragement of a sympathetic circle were wanting. In a university where the instruction of youth or the religious controversy of the day were the only known occupations, Bentley was an isolated phenomenon, and we can hardly wonder that he should have flagged in his literary exertions after his appointment to the mastership of Trinity. All his vast acquisitions and all his original views seem to have been obtained before 1700. After this period he acquired little and made only spasmodic efforts—the Horace, the Terence and the Milton. The prolonged See also:mental concentration and mature meditation, which alone can produce a great work, were wanting to him. F.

A. Wolf, Literarische Analekten, i. (1816) ; Monk, Life of Bentley (1830); J. Mahly, Richard Bentley, eine Biographic (1868); R. C. See also:

Jebb, Bentley (" English Men of Letters " series, 1882), where a See also:list of authorities bearing on Bentley's life and work is given. For his letters see Bentlei et doctorumsvirorum ad eum Epistolae (1807); The Correspondence of Richard Bentley, edited by C. See also:Wordsworth (1842). See also J. E. See also:Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, ii. 401-410 (1908); and the Bibliography of Bentley, by A.

T. See also:

Bartholomew and J. W. See also:Clark (Cambridge, 1908).

End of Article: BENTLEY, RICHARD (1662-1742)

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML.
Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.

Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.

[back]
BENTIVOGLIO, GUIDO (1579-1644) 		[next]
BENTLEY, RICHARD (1794-1871)

Site © 2006 - Net Industries