,
Sir William Temple, was naturally in alliance with "the
Bees," with ingenious ambiguity alludes to the glorious
manufacture. "Boyle, clad in a suit of armour, _which had
been given him by all the GODS_." Still the truth was only
floating in rumours and surmises; and the little that Boyle
had done was not yet known. Lord Orrery, his son, had a
difficulty to overcome to pass lightly over this allusion. The
literary honour of the family was at stake, and his filial
piety was exemplary to a father, who had unfortunately, in
passion, deprived his lordship of the family library--a
stroke from which his sensibility never recovered, and which
his enemies ungenerously pointed against him. Lord Orrery,
with all the tenderness of a son, and the caution of a
politician, observes on "the armour given by the Gods"--"I
shall not _dispute_ about the _gift_ of the armour. The Gods
never bestowed celestial armour except upon heroes, whose
courage and superior strength distinguished them from the
rest of mankind." Most ingeniously he would seem to
convert into a classical fable what was designed as a plain
matter of fact!

It does credit to the discernment of Bentley, whose taste was
not very lively in English composition, that he pronounced
Boyle was _not the author_ of the "Examination," from _the
variety of styles in it_.--p. 107.

[301] This short and pointed satire of Horace is merely a pleasant
story about a low wretch of the name of King; and Brutus,
under whose command he was, is entreated to get rid of him,
from his hereditary hatred to _all kings_. I suppose this pun
must be considered legitimate, otherwise Horace was an
indifferent punster.

[302] A keen repartee! Yet King could read this mighty volume as "a
vain confused performance," but the learned DODWELL declared
to "the Bees of Christchurch," who looked up to him, that "he
had never learned so much from any book of the size in his
life." King was as unjust to Bentley, as Bentley to King. Men
of genius are more subject to "unnatural civil war" than even
the blockheads whom Pope sarcastically reproaches with it. The
great critic's own notion of his volume seems equally modest