he broken or passionate recollections of the
parties on the watch to confound one another.[298]

Bentley's Narrative is a most vigorous production: it heaves with the
workings of a master-spirit; still reasoning with such force, and
still applying with such happiness the stores of his copious
literature, had it not been for this literary quarrel, the mere
English reader had lost this single opportunity of surveying that
commanding intellect.

Boyle's edition of "Phalaris" was a work of parade, designed to confer
on a young man, who bore an eminent name, some distinction in the
literary world. But Bentley seems to have been well-informed of the
secret transactions at Christchurch. In his first attack he mentions
Boyle as "the young gentleman of great hopes, whose name is set to the
edition;" and asserts that the editor, no more than his own
"Phalaris," has written what was ascribed to him. He persists in
making a plurality of a pretended unity, by multiplying Boyle into a
variety of little personages, of "new editors," our "annotators," our
"great geniuses."[299] Boyle, touched at these reflections, declared
"they were levelled at a learned society, in which I had the happiness
to be educated; as if 'Phalaris' had been made up by contributions
from several hands." Pressed by Bentley to acknowledge the assistance
of Dr. John Freind, Boyle confers on him the ambiguous title of "The
Director of Studies." Bentley links the Bees together--Dr. Freind and
Dr. Alsop. "The Director of Studies, who has lately set out Ovid's
'Metamorphoses,' with a paraphrase and notes, is of the same size for
learning with the late editor of the AEsopian Fables. They bring the
nation into contempt abroad, and themselves into it at home;" and adds
to this magisterial style, the mortification of his criticism on
Freind's Ovid, as on Alsop's AEsop.

But Boyle assuming the honours of an edition of "Phalaris," was but a
venial offence, compared with that committed by the celebrated volume
published in its defence.

If Bentley's suspicions were not far from the truth, that "the
'Phalaris' had been _made up by contributions_," they approached still
closer when they attacked "The Examination of his Dissertation." Such
was the assistance which Boyle received from all "the Bees," that
scarcely a few ears of that rich sheaf fall to his portion. His
efforts hardly reach to the mere narrative of his transactions with
Bentley. All the varied erudition, all