work, his Horace, remained on his hands, he still was busied in classical labors, and wrote an extended series of notes to Davies' edition of Cicero's Tusculan Questions. These notes are entertaining as well as instructive, and show a great knowledge of the philosophical writings of Cicero, in addition to many ingenious corrections of corrupted metrical fragments of ancient Latin poets. Detained from longer labors by college quarrels, he found time to review LeClerc's edition of the fragments of Philemon and Menander. This work published in 1709, by a man of great scholarship, seems to have been so defective and mutilated as to be almost worthless. This review, which was published at Utrecht by Burmann,* under the title of Phileleutherus Lip

to whom he had been introduced by Grævius. He was occupied here mainly on an edition of Suidas, and labored with so much diligence that in four years his work was completed in three massy folios. He attended as the representative of Cambridge, at the centenary celebration of the University of Frankfort on the Oder, in 1706. On account of some slight he received at Berlin he resigned his professorship, and returned to Utrecht, where he commenced an edition of Hesychius, and published one of Aristophanes. In 1713 he went to Paris, became a Catholic, received a pension cf 2000 livres, and was appointed a member of the Academie des Inscriptions. He here devoted himself with so intense application to his great project of an edition of Hesychius, that his health was undermined and he died in 1716.

§ Tiberius Hemsterhuis was born at Groningen in 1685. He entered the school of that city and devoted himself there chiefly to mathematical studies. He resided some time at Leyden, and before 20 years of age was made professor of mathematics at Amsterdam. He here entered on his glorious career of philology, and before he was nineteen, by the advice of the veteran Grævius, he undertook to complete an edition of Julius Pollux the lexicographer, three books of which had been left unfinished by Lederlin. This led him into a correspondence with Bentley, whose corrections of those points in which he thought himself most perfect, the restoration of the comic fragments, so discouraged him that for two months he refused to open a Greek book. He soon however resumed his studies with greater ardor, and almost rivalled Bentley in his peculiar province, becoming the most profound grammarian and critic of his age. We are mainly indebted to him for the founding of the Analogical School of study for the Greek language. Salmasius and Joseph Scaliger had prepared the way. His principal works are the edition of Pollux above mentioned, an edition of the Plutus of Aristophanes, and of select dialogues of Lucian. He died in 1756. Ruhnken and Valcknaer were his pupils. His son, Francis Hemsterhuis, was also distinguished for his classical and philosophical attain

ments.

The Burmann family originated at Cologne. Franeis, who was born in 1632, was a theologian at Utrecht, where he died in 1669. Peter, his son, was born at Utrecht in 1668, and studied there and at Leyden. In 1688 he became Doctor of Law, and devoted himself to that profession. In 1696 he was made Professor of History and Rhetoric at Utrecht, and afterwards

siensis, exposed the ignorance and presumption of the editor with the keenest irony, and contains many emendations of the text conceived in Bentley's happiest style and for the most part certain and irrefragable.

At the close of the year 1711, Bentley completed the notes to his Horace. It appeared either by accident or design on the birth-day of the poet himself, and was dedicated in a highly complimentary preface, to the Lord Treasurer, Oxford. The greater part of the notes were written in the space of five months, a space too brief for anything but perfect self-confidence and incredible labor. This work is a specimen of both the excellencies and faults of Bentley, demonstrating unequalled erudition, and wonderful critical sagacity, and at the same time, licentiousness of emendation and insufferable arrogance. The alterations of the common readings of Horace were between seven and eight hundred in number, and were all introduced into the text. Many of them are supported by old editions and manuscripts, but the most are purely conjectural, and though they are defended ingeniously and often convincingly, he was himself constrained to acknowledge a regret for about twenty. Of his proposed alterations the greater part are dubious, many unnecessary, others harsh and improbable. It called forth a host of critics, by whom he was assailed with every sort of weapon, grave refutation, irony, and ridicule.

In 1717 Bentley was elected Regius Professor of Divinity. The subject of his Prælection was the genuineness of John i. 7, which he rejected as spurious. However deserving of the office he might have been on the ground of scholarship, one can hardly doubt that his rude temper, and quarrelsome life fully justified the opposition he experienced. His election seems to have been compassed by a manœuvre hardly to have been expected from a candidate for a divinity chair. We pass over his suits in the King's Bench, his quarrels with Colbach and Middleton, and his projected editions of

of Greek. He became Professor of Eloquence, History, and Greek, at Leyden in 1715, and died in 1741. He published editions of many Latin classics, which are distinguished for the learning and accuracy displayed in them. Among them were Phaedrus, Lucan, Petronius Arbiter, &c. The reference in the text is to him. Peter Burmann, his nephew, born in 1713, Professor of Eloquence at Franceker in 1735, and of ancient languages and of poetry at Amsterdam, was also devoted to philology, and the editor of many good editions of the classics. He died in 1778.

the New Testament, and of a series of classics in usum Frederici Principis, to his edition of Terence. This seems to have been a favorite work, and early and long contemplated. In 1724 Dr Hare, a former intimate friend of Bentley, though of late there had been much coldness between them, published an edition of Terence, in which he took great pains to explain and illustrate the metres. Indeed the metres throughout were marked, and by an unfortunate mistake of Bentley's instructions from which he had plainly derived all his knowledge of the subject, one species was uniformly marked wrong. Bentley considered this an intrusion on his premises and an unfair abuse of his former kindness, and was particularly incensed as Hare had made some insinuations against him. He immediately resolved to crush his rival by an edition of his own. It appeared in 1725. The notes were written at the rate of a comedy a week, and contain the illustration and vindication of a thousand changes in the text. They are compact, pertinent, and full of bitter rebuke of Hare. This work though disfigured by Bentley's besetting sin of conjectural emendation, gives probably the best text of Terence that has ever been given to the world. Prefixed to the edition is his essay on the metres of Terence, the clearest and most satisfactory account that has ever yet been written of that difficult subject.

Just before this period, the Bishoprick of Bristol was offered to Bentley, through the Duke of Newcastle. When it was declined, his grace asked "what sort of preferment he expected or desired;" "such preferment," replied Bentley, "as would not induce me to desire an exchange."

We have space only to mention his disastrous undertaking to edit Milton, a work for which his critical sagacity did not qualify him, and for which his want of imagination utterly unfitted him. The notion in which this work originated, if it were not rather a fiction devised to justify it, was that numerous errors had been foisted into the text by the copyist, which Milton, being blind, could not detect. We give a single specimen of his notes. It is upon B. IV, 323.

"Adam, the goodliest man of men since born

His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve."

"I'll not believe this distich to be Milton's. The sense is entirely expressed in the lines preceding; and the diction

is very vicious. Adam' the goodliest of his sons,' Eve' the fairest of her daughter,' which in strict construction implies him to have been one of his sons, and her one of her daughters. Besides, his sons, her daughters; as if his sons were not hers, and her daughters his. He might have avoided the fault of expression thus:

Adam, a goodlier man than men since born

His sons, and fairer than her daughters Eve.

But the whole is silly, superfluous, and spurious."

On the fourteenth of July, 1742, Bentley died, having just completed his eightieth year. His literary character we need not commend, his ambition, selfishness, and arrogance we would gladly forget.*

ART. VI. THE HISTORY OF MERCHANT TAYLORS' SCHOOL.

THE great establishments which have been founded in this country for the advancement of learning, generally look to kings as their nursing fathers and queens as their nursing mothers; to churchmen, when the church possessed so large a portion of the kingdom's wealth and the power of the state; and to a scarce inferior source, the piety of individuals distinguished for their wealth and their virtues. length commerce also, when commerce began to rear its head and become a column of support to the growing prosperity of the nation, had its share in promoting science and encouraging learning; and it is sufficient, without enlarging on a subject where the allotted space can allow of little more than a few historical notices, to come at once to the example which has been afforded by the Merchant Taylor's Company of London.

The origin of this company, with the progressive details

*The above imperfect sketch has been taken, often verbatim, from Monk's Life of Bentley. This work is exceedingly interesting and valuable, for the literary history of those times.

We have a series of articles containing the history of the principal schools or colleges in England, such as Eton, Westminster, &c. We have selected the account of the Merchant Taylors' School as best suiting the crowded state of our pages.

of its history; the kings and princes, the nobles and prelates, the naval and military heroes, and municipal magistrates, who have been admitted into its fraternity, with the current of charity which, from century to century, has flowed through it, will naturally excite an honorable pride in the bosoms of those who have received their education in that school which was founded by it.

This brief narrative, or historical sketch, of the Company of Merchant Taylors and its School which follows, is taken, and in some measure literally copied, from a work which confers no common honor on the industry, ingenuity, and antiquarian research of its author:* and so far from apologizing for what these pages have borrowed from it, their compiler has rather to lament, that it is not in his power to heighten their interest and extend their information by additional extracts.

The worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, the founders of this distinguished seminary of learning which bears their name, have, in the language of Stow, been a guild or fraternity time out of mind, by the name of Taylors and Linen-Armorers; as it appears that Edward I. in the twentyeighth year of his reign, confirmed this guild under the aforesaid names, and gave to the brethren thereof leave and licence every Midsummer to hold a feast, and then chuse them a governor or master, with wardens. This society was afterwards incorporated by letters patent of the fifth of Edward IV. in the year 1466, and they soon after received a grant of arms, nearly the same as those borne by the present company. But many of the members being great and opulent merchants, and Henry VII. enrolled among them, as several of his royal progenitors had been, that monarch, by his letters patent under the great seal, in the year 1530, was pleased to reincorporate the society by the name of the Masters and Wardens of the Merchant Taylors of the Fraternity of St John the Baptist in the city of London; and, as appears by the oath prescribed to be taken by every person admitted on the livery, provision was made that the company

The History of Merchant Taylors' School, by the Rev. H. B. Wilson, B. D. Second Undermaster.

+ Stow's Survey, vol. ii. p. 227.