Misc Writings and Speeches, vol 3 | Page 6

Where he had no
arguments, he resorted to personalities, sometimes serious, generally
ludicrous, always clever and cutting. But, whether he was grave or
merry, whether he reasoned or sneered, his style was always pure,
polished, and easy.
Party spirit then ran high; yet, though Bentley ranked among Whigs,
and Christchurch was a stronghold of Toryism, Whigs joined with
Tories in applauding Atterbury's volume. Garth insulted Bentley, and

extolled Boyle in lines which are now never quoted except to be
laughed at. Swift, in his "Battle of the Books," introduced with much
pleasantry Boyle, clad in armour, the gift of all the gods, and directed
by Apollo in the form of a human friend, for whose name a blank is left
which may easily be filled up. The youth, so accoutred, and so assisted,
gains an easy victory over his uncourteous and boastful antagonist.
Bentley, meanwhile, was supported by the consciousness of an
immeasurable superiority, and encouraged by the voices of the few who
were really competent to judge the combat. "No man," he said, justly
and nobly, "was ever written down but by himself." He spent two years
in preparing a reply, which will never cease to be read and prized while
the literature of ancient Greece is studied in any part of the world. This
reply proved, not only that the letters ascribed to Phalaris were spurious,
but that Atterbury, with all his wit, his eloquence, his skill in
controversial fence, was the most audacious pretender that ever wrote
about what he did not understand. But to Atterbury this exposure was
matter of indifference. He was now engaged in a dispute about matters
far more important and exciting than the laws of Zaleucus and the laws
of Charondas. The rage of religious factions was extreme. High church
and Low church divided the nation. The great majority of the clergy
were on the high-church side; the majority of King William's bishops
were inclined to latitudinarianism. A dispute arose between the two
parties touching the extent of the powers of the Lower House of
Convocation. Atterbury thrust himself eagerly into the front rank of the
high-churchmen. Those who take a comprehensive and impartial view
of his whole career will not be disposed to give him credit for religious
zeal. But it was his nature to be vehement and pugnacious in the cause
of every fraternity of which he was a member. He had defended the
genuineness of a spurious book simply because Christchurch had put
forth an edition of that book; he now stood up for the clergy against the
civil power, simply because he was a clergyman, and for the priests
against the episcopal order, simply because he was as yet only a priest.
He asserted the pretensions of the class to which he belonged in several
treatises written with much wit, ingenuity, audacity, and acrimony. In
this, as in his first controversy, he was opposed to antagonists whose
knowledge of the subject in dispute was far superior to his; but in this,
as in his first controversy, he imposed on the multitude by bold

assertion, by sarcasm, by declamation, and, above all, by his peculiar
knack of exhibiting a little erudition in such a manner as to make it
look like a great deal. Having passed himself off on the world as a
greater master of classical learning than Bentley, he now passed
himself off as a greater master of ecclesiastical learning than Wake or
Gibson. By the great body of the clergy he was regarded as the ablest
and most intrepid tribune that had ever defended their rights against the
oligarchy of prelates. The lower House of Convocation voted him
thanks for his services; the University of Oxford created him a doctor
of divinity; and soon after the accession of Anne, while the Tories still
had the chief weight in the government, he was promoted to the
deanery of Carlisle.
Soon after he had obtained this preferment, the Whig party rose to
ascendency in the state. From that party he could expect no favour. Six
years elapsed before a change of fortune took place. At length, in the
year 1710, the prosecution of Sacheverell produced a formidable
explosion of high-church fanaticism. At such a moment Atterbury
could not fail to be conspicuous. His inordinate zeal for the body to
which he belonged, his turbulent and aspiring temper, his rare talents
for agitation and for controversy, were again signally displayed. He
bore a chief part in framing that artful and eloquent speech which the
accused divine pronounced at the bar of the Lords, and which presents
a singular contrast to the absurd and scurrilous sermon which had very
unwisely been honoured with impeachment. During the troubled and
anxious months which followed the trial, Atterbury was among the
most active of those