Misc Writings and Speeches, vol 3 | Page 4

and invectives of the
young polemic that they raised a cry of treason, and accused him of
having, by implication, called King James a Judas.
After the Revolution, Atterbury, though bred in the doctrines of
non-resistance and passive obedience, readily swore fealty to the new
government. In no long time he took holy orders. He occasionally
preached in London with an eloquence which raised his reputation, and
soon had the honour of being appointed one of the royal chaplains. But
he ordinarily resided at Oxford, where he took an active part in
academical business, directed the classical studies of the
undergraduates of his college, and was the chief adviser and assistant of
Dean Aldrich, a divine now chiefly remembered by his catches, but
renowned among his contemporaries as a scholar, a Tory, and a
high-churchman. It was the practice, not a very judicious practice, of
Aldrich to employ the most promising youths of his college in editing
Greek and Latin books. Among the studious and well-disposed lads
who were, unfortunately for themselves, induced to become teachers of
philology when they should have been content to be learners, was
Charles Boyle, son of the Earl of Orrery, and nephew of Robert Boyle,
the great experimental philosopher. The task assigned to Charles Boyle
was to prepare a new edition of one of the most worthless books in
existence. It was a fashion, among those Greeks and Romans who
cultivated rhetoric as an art, to compose epistles and harangues in the
names of eminent men. Some of these counterfeits are fabricated with
such exquisite taste and skill that it is the highest achievement of
criticism to distinguish them from originals. Others are so feebly and
rudely executed that they can hardly impose on an intelligent schoolboy.
The best specimen which has come down to us is perhaps the oration
for Marcellus, such an imitation of Tully's eloquence as Tully would
himself have read with wonder and delight. The worst specimen is
perhaps a collection of letters purporting to have been written by that
Phalaris who governed Agrigentum more than 500 years before the
Christian era. The evidence, both internal and external, against the
genuineness of these letters is overwhelming. When, in the fifteenth
century, they emerged, in company with much that was far more

valuable, from their obscurity, they were pronounced spurious by
Politian, the greatest scholar of Italy, and by Erasmus, the greatest
scholar on our side of the Alps. In truth, it would be as easy to persuade
an educated Englishman that one of Johnson's Ramblers was the work
of William Wallace as to persuade a man like Erasmus that a pedantic
exercise, composed in the trim and artificial Attic of the time of Julian,
was a despatch written by a crafty and ferocious Dorian, who roasted
people alive many years before there existed a volume of prose in the
Greek language. But, though Christchurch could boast of many good
Latinists, of many good English writers, and of a greater number of
clever and fashionable men of the world than belonged to any other
academic body, there was not then in the college a single man capable
of distinguishing between the infancy and the dotage of Greek literature.
So superficial indeed was the learning of the rulers of this celebrated
society that they were charmed by an essay which Sir William Temple
published in praise of the ancient writers. It now seems strange that
even the eminent public services, the deserved popularity, and the
graceful style of Temple should have saved so silly a performance from
universal contempt. Of the books which he most vehemently eulogised
his eulogies proved that he knew nothing. In fact, he could not read a
line of the language in which they were written. Among many other
foolish things, he said that the letters of Phalaris were the oldest letters
and also the best in the world. Whatever Temple wrote attracted notice.
People who had never heard of the Epistles of Phalaris began to inquire
about them. Aldrich, who knew very little Greek, took the word of
Temple who knew none, and desired Boyle to prepare a new edition of
these admirable compositions which, having long slept in obscurity,
had become on a sudden objects of general interest.
The edition was prepared with the help of Atterbury, who was Boyle's
tutor, and of some other members of the college. It was an edition such
as might be expected from people who would stoop to edite such a
book. The notes were worthy of the text; the Latin version worthy of
the Greek original. The volume would have been forgotten in a month,
had not a misunderstanding about a manuscript arisen between the
young editor and the greatest scholar that had appeared in Europe since
the revival of