further,
than their own;" and, in the imperious style of Festus, add:--"Since
Dr. Bentley has appealed to foreign universities, to foreign
universities he must go." Yet this is light, compared with the odium
they would raise against him by the menace of the resentments of a
whole society of learned men.

"_Single adversaries_ die and drop off; but _societies_ are immortal:
their resentments are sometimes delivered down from hand to hand; and
when once they have begun with a man, there is no knowing when they
will leave him."

In reply to this literary anathema, Bentley was furnished, by his
familiarity with his favourite authors, with a fortunate application
of a term, derived from Phalaris himself. Cicero had conveyed his idea
of Caesar's cruelty by this term, which he invented from the very name
of the tyrant.[304]

"There is a certain temper of mind that Cicero calls _Phalarism_; a
spirit like Phalaris's. One would be apt to imagine that a portion of
it had descended upon some of his translators. The gentleman has given
a broad hint more than once in his book, that if I proceed further
against Phalaris, I may draw, perhaps, a duel, or a stab upon myself;
a generous threat to a divine, who neither carries arms nor principles
fit for that sort of controversy. I expected such usage from the
spirit of Phalarism."

In this controversy, the amusing fancy of "the Bees" could not pass by
Phalaris without contriving to make some use of that brazen bull by
which he tortured men alive. Not satisfied in their motto, from the
Earl of Roscommon, with wedging "the great critic, like Milo, in the
timber he strove to rend," they gave him a second death in their
finis, by throwing Bentley into Phalaris's bull, and flattering their
vain imaginations that they heard him "bellow."

"He has defied Phalaris, and used him very coarsely, under the
assurance, as he tells us, that 'he is out of his reach.' Many of
Phalaris's enemies thought the same thing, and repented of their vain
confidence afterwards in his _bull_. Dr. Bentley is perhaps, by this
time, or will be suddenly, satisfied that he also has presumed a
little too much upon his distance; but it will be too late to repent
when he begins to bellow."[305]

Bentley, although the solid force of his mind was not favourable to
the lighter sports of wit, yet was not quite destitute of those airy
qualities; nor does he seem insensible to the literary merits of "that
odd work," as he