Each wight, who reads not, and but fcans and fpells, Each Word-catcher that lives on fyllables, 165 NOTES. to the genius of PHILOLOGY, may be feen by a fhort account of the manners of the modern Scholiafts. When in these latter ages, human learning raised its head in the Weft; and its tail, verbal criticism, was, of course, to rife with it; the madness of Critics foon became fo offenfive, that the grave ftupidity of the monks might appear the more tolerable evil. 7. Argyropylus, a mercenary Greek, who came to teach school in Italy, after the facking of Conftantinople by the Turks, ufed to maintain that Cicero underftood neither philofophy nor Greek: while another of his countrymen, J. Lafcaris by name, threatened to demonstrate that Virgil was no Poet. Countenanced by such great examples, a French Critic afterwards undertook to prove that Aristotle did not understand Greek, nor Titus Livius, Latin. It was the fame difcernment of fpirit, which has fince difcovered that Jofephus was ignorant of Hebrew; and Erafmus fo pitiful a linguift, that, Burman affures us, were he now alive, he would not deserve to be put at the head of a country school. though time has ftrip'd the prefent race of Pedants of all the real accomplishments of their predeceffors, it has conveyed down this fpirit to them, unimpaired; it being found much easier to ape their manners, than to imitate their science. However, thofe earlier RIBALDS raifed an appetite for the Greek language in the Weft: infomuch, that Hermolaus Barbarus, a paffionate admirer of it, and a noted Critic, used to boaft, that he had invoked and raised the Devil, and puzzled him into the bargain, about the meaning of the Ariftotelian ENTEAEXEIA. Another, whom Balzac fpeaks of, was as eminent for his Revelations: and was wont to fay, that the meaning of fuch or fuch a verse, in Perfius, no one knew but GOD and himself. While the celebrated Pomponius Lætus, in excess of veneration for Antiquity, became a real Pagan; For Ev'n fuch small Critics fome regard may claim, Preferved in Milton's or in Shakespear's name. NOTES. raised altars to Romulus, and facrificed to the Gods of Latium; in which he was followed by our countryman Baxter, in every thing, but in the coftlinefs of his facrifices. But if the Greeks cried down Cicero, the Italian Critics knew how to fupport his credit. Every one has heard of the childish exceffes into which the ambition of being thought CICERONIANS carried the most celebrated Italians of this time. They abftained from reading the Scriptures for fear of fpoiling their style: Cardinal Bembo ufed to call the Epiftles of St. Paul by the contemptuous name of Epiftolaccias, great overgrown Epiftles. But ERASMUS cured their frenzy by that mafter-piece of good fenfe, his Ciceronianus. For which (in the way Lunatics treat their Phyficians) the elder Scaliger infulted him with all the brutal fury peculiar to his family. and profeffion. His fon Jofeph and Salmafius had indeed fuch endowments of nature and art, as might have raised modern learning to a rivalship with the ancient. Yet how did they and their adverfaries tear and worry one another? The choiceft of JoJeph's flowers of speech were Stercus Diaboli, and Lutum ftercore maceratum. It is true, these were lavished upon his enemies for his friends he had other things in ftore. In a letter to Thuanus, fpeaking of two of them, Clavius and Lipfius, he calls the firft a monster of ignorance; and the other, a flave to the fefuits, and an Idiot. But fo great was his love of facred amity at the fame time, that he fays, I ftill keep up my corref pondence with him, notwith tanding his Idiotry, for it is my principle to be conftant in my friendships-Je ne refte de luy eferire, nonobftant fon Idioterie, d'auta't que je fuis conftant en amitié. The character he gives of his own Chren logy, in the fame letter, is no lefs extraordinary: Vous vous pouvez aurer que notre Eufebe fera un tréfor des merveilles de la doctrine Chronologique. But this modeft account of his own work, is nothing in comparison of the idea the Father gives his bookfeller of his own Perfon. This bookfeller was preparing fomething of Julius Scaliger's for the Prefs; and defired the Author would Pretty! in amber to obferve the forms 169 Of hairs, or ftraws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! NOTES. give him directions concerning his picture, which was to be fet before the book. Julius's answer (as it stands in his collection of letters) is, that if the engraver could collect together the several graces of Maffiniffa, Xenophon, and Plato, he might then be enabled to give the public fome faint and imperfect resemblance of his Perfon. Nor was Salmafius's judgment of his own parts lefs favourable to himself; as Mr. Colomies tells the ftory. This Critic, on a time, meeting two of his brethren, Meff. Gaulman and Mauffac, in the Royal Library at Paris, Gaulman, in a virtuous confcioufnefs of their importance, told the other two, that he believed, they three could make head against all the Learned in Europe: To which the great Salmafius fiercely replied, "Do you "and M. Mauljac join yourselves to all that are learned in "the world, and you shall find that I alone am a match for 66 you all." Voffius tells us, that when Laur. Valla had fnarled at every name of the first order in antiquity, fuch as Ariftotle, Cicero, and one whom I should have thought, this Critic the likelieft to reverence, the redoubtable PRISCIAN, he impiously boasted that he had arms even against Chrift himself. But Codrus Urcrus went further, and actually ufed thofe arms the other only threatened with. This man, while he was preparing fome trifling piece of Criticism for the prefs, had the misfortune to hear his papers were deftroyed by fire: On which he is reported to have broke out-" Quodnam ego tantum fcelus concepi, O Chrifte! quem ego tuorum unquam læfi, ut "ita inexpiabili in me odio debaccheris? Audi ea quæ tibi "mentis compos, et ex animo dicam. Si forte, cum ad ul"timum vitæ finem pervenero, fupplex accedam ad te ora66 tum, neve audias, neve inter tuos accipias oro; cum Infer"nis Diis in æternum vitam agere decrevi." Whereupon, fays my author, he quitted the converfe of men, threw himself into the thickest of a forest, and wore out the wretched remainder of his life in all the agonies of despair. 66 The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there. Well might they rage, I gave them but their due, NOTES. VER. 164. flashing Bentley] This great man, with all his faults, deferved however to be put into better company. The following words of Cicero defcribe him not amifs. "Habuit "à natura genus quoddam acuminis, quod etiam arte lima"verat, quod erat in reprehendendis verbis verfutum et fol"lers: fed fæpe ftomachofum, nonnunquam frigidum, inter"dum etiam facetum." VER. 109. Pretty! in amber to obferve the forms, &c.] Our Poet had the full pleasure of this amufement foon after the publication of his Shakespear. Nor has his Friend been lefs entertained fince the appearance of his edition of the same poet the liquid Amber of whofe Wit has lately licked up, and enrolled fuch a quantity of thefe Infects, and of tribes fo grotefque and various, as would have puzzled Reaumur to give names to. Two or three of them it may not be amifs to preferve and keep alive: fuch as the Rev. Dr. Zachary Grey; Thomas Edwards, Efq; and, to make up the Triumvirate, their learned Coadjutor, that very refpectable perfonage, Mr. THEOPHILUS CIBBER. As to the poetic imagery of this paffage, it has been much and juftly admired; for the molt deteftable things in nature, as a toad or a beetle, become pleafing, when well reprefented in a work of Art. But it is no lefs eminent for the beauty of the thought: for though a feribler exijts by being thus incorporated, yet he exifis entombed; a lafting monument of the wrath of the Muses. VER. 173. Were others angry:] The Poets. VER. 174.-I gave them but their due ] Our Author always found thofe, he commended, lefs fenfile than thofe he reproved. The reafon is plain. He gave the latter but their due; and the other thought, they had no more. 175 A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find; He, who still wanting, tho' he lives on theft, And own'd that nine fuch Poets made a Tate. 190 NOTES. VER. 180-a Perfian tale.] Amb. Philips translated a Book called the Perfian tales. VER. 186. Means not, but blunders round about a meaning:] An accident frequent, and common both to Poets and Critics of a certain order; only with this difference, that the Poet writes himself out of his oun meaning, and the Critic never gets into another man's. Yet both keep going on, and blundering round about their fubject, as benighted people are wont to do, who seek for an entrance which they cannot find. VER. 189. All thefe, my m deft Satire bad tranflate,] See their works, in the Tranflations of claffical books by feveral bands. VER. 190.-nine fuch Poets, &c.] Alluding, not to the nine Myfes, but to nine Taylors, |