"Hill puffs himself; forbear to chide!
An insect vile and mean
Must first, he knows, be magnified
Before it can be seen."

Garrick's happy lines are well known on his farces:--

"For physic and farces his equal there scarce is--
His farces are physic, his physic a farce is."

Another said--

"The worse that we wish thee, for all thy vile crimes,
Is to take thy own physic, and read thy own rhymes."

The rejoinder would reverse the wish--

"For, if he takes his physic first,
He'll never read his rhymes."

[296] Hill says, in his pamphlet on the "Virtues of British
Herbs":--"It will be happy if, by the same means, the
knowledge of plants also becomes more general. The study of
them is pleasant, and the exercise of it healthful. He who
seeks the herb for its cure, will find it half effected by the
walk; and when he is acquainted with the useful kinds, he may
be more people's, besides his own, physician."

BOYLE AND BENTLEY.

A Faction of Wits at Oxford the concealed movers of this
Controversy--Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE'S opinions the ostensible cause;
Editions of classical Authors by young Students at Oxford the
probable one--BOYLE'S first attack in the Preface to his
"Phalaris"--BENTLEY, after a silence of three years, betrays his
feelings on the literary calumny of BOYLE--BOYLE replies by the
"Examination of Bentley's Dissertation"--BENTLEY rejoins by
enlarging it--the effects of a contradictory Narrative at a
distant time--BENTLEY'S suspicions of the origin of the
"Phalaris," and "The Examination," proved by subsequent
facts--BENTLEY'S dignity when stung at the ridicule of Dr.
KING--applies a classical pun, and nicknames his facetious and
caustic Adversary--KING invents an extraordinary Index to dissect
the character of BENTLEY--specimens of the Controversy; BOYLE'S
menace, anathema, and ludicrous humour--BENTLEY'S sarcastic reply
not inferior to that of the Wits.

The splendid controversy between BOYLE and BENTLEY was at times a
strife of gladiators, and has been regretted as the opprobrium of our
literature; but it should be perpetuated to its honour; for it may be
considered, on one side at least, as a noble contest of heroism.

The ostensible cause of the present quarrel was inconsiderable; the
con