ious. The blow was levelled at Christchurch,
and all "the bees" were brushed down in the warmth of their
summer-day.

It is remarkable that Bentley kept so long a silence; indeed, he had
considered the affair so trivial, that he had preserved no part of the
correspondence with Boyle, whom no doubt he slighted as the young
editor of a spurious author. But Boyle's edition came forth, as
Bentley expresses it, "with a sting in its mouth." This, at first,
was like a cut finger--he breathed on it, and would have forgotten it;
but the nerve was touched, and the pain raged long after the stroke.
Even the great mind of Bentley began to shrink at the touch of
literary calumny, so different from the vulgar kind, in its extent and
its duration. He betrays the soreness he would wish to conceal, when
he complains that "the false story has been spread all over England."

The statement of Bentley produced, in reply, the famous book of
Boyle's "Examination of Bentley's Dissertation." It opens with an
imposing narrative, highly polished, of the whole transaction, with the
extraordinary furniture of documents, which had never before entered
into a literary controversy--depositions--certificates--affidavits--and
private letters. Bentley now rejoined by his enlarged "Dissertation on
Phalaris," a volume of perpetual value to the lovers of ancient
literature, and the memorable preface of which, itself a volume,
exhibits another Narrative, entirely differing from Boyle's. These
produced new replies and new rejoinders. The whole controversy became
so perplexed, that it has frightened away all who have attempted to
adjust the particulars. With unanimous consent they give up the
cause, as one in which both parties studied only to contradict each
other. Such was the fate of a Narrative, which was made out of the
recollections of the parties, with all their passions at work, after
an interval of three years. In each, the memory seemed only retentive
of those passages which best suited their own purpose, and which were
precisely those the other party was most likely to have forgotten.
What was forgotten, was denied; what was admitted, was made to refer to
something else; dialogues were given which appear never to have been
spoken; and incidents described which are declared never to have taken
place; and all this, perhaps, without any purposed violation of
truth. Such were the dangers and misunderstandings which attended a
Narrative framed out of t