1830.] [ 105 ] 



MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 





Life of Bentley, ly Dr. Monk, Dean of 

 Peterborough. The Dean of Peterborough 

 is no novice in literature ; but we never gave 

 him credit for talents which the work before 

 us proves he possesses. Much, indeed, of 

 the bulky volume is occupied with the 

 rights and customs of the University of 

 Cambridge, and its administration for nearly 

 half a century a subject which will inte- 

 rest few, perhaps, but Cambridge, and espe- 

 cially Trinity men ; and much of it also is 

 taken up with controversial topics, the inte- 

 rest of which, though once universal, is now 

 gone by, and will not be revived ; but all of 

 them are intimately connected with Bentley's 

 story , and Dr. Monk's narrative interweaves the 

 whole with as much felicity as care. These are 

 matters, however, which could not, with any 

 regard to a full and distinct view of Bentley's 

 character, have been omitted; and though 

 general readers, as light readers are called, 

 will care little for University annals, the 

 living generations of Cambridge men will 

 alone amount to no inconsiderable number. 

 In addition to great labour of research, Dr. 

 Monk's book affords abundant proofs that 

 every subject which came within his purview 

 has been well considered, under the guidance 

 of sound sense and vigorous judgment. He 

 has not flinched from a free expression of 

 censure ; and Bentley's conduct, it must be 

 confessed, gave frequent occasion for it. 

 With this freedom we have been, above all, 

 well pleased, for we fully expected some 

 attempt to wash the Ethiop white. The 

 dean and we thank a man of his station for 

 the avowal sees neither justice nor expedi- 

 ency in biographers suppressing errors and 

 frailties truth is the paramount considera- 

 tion, and the failings of great men are as 

 well calculated as their virtues to point a 

 useful moral. Contrast Nares, in his life of 

 Burghley, with Dr. Monk, in this respect. 

 The same bullying temperament which 

 plunged Bentley, in his literary pursuits, 

 into intemperate conflicts, prompted him to 

 tyrannical acts in the exercise of authority. 

 As Master of Trinity, he broke through all 

 established rules and rights, in a resolute 

 determination to indulge his passion for 

 autocratic power. He was a perpetual tor- 

 ment to the senior fellows of his own college, 

 and kept the University in a flame for almost 

 forty years cool himself, and enjoying the 

 conflagration hehad kindled around him. Nei- 

 ther the suspension of his degrees for five 

 or six years, nor even a sentence of deposi- 

 tion, broke or bent him ; he set all at de- 

 fiance baffled all, the Vice Chancellor's 

 court, the diocesan, the King's Bench, the 

 Privy Council, the House of Lords, and to 

 his dying hour kept possession of his digni- 

 ties and appointments. 



Bentley's career, however, was one of the 

 good old English kind the result of ability, 



M.M. New Series VOL. X. No. 55. 



and the friends whom that ability secured. 

 The son of a Yorkshire yeoman, he was 

 brought up at Wakefield school, and gradu- 

 ated with distinction at St. John's, Cambridge. 

 As early as twenty, he was made mas- 

 ter of Spalding school, the patronage of 

 which had lapsed to his college ; and, 

 luckily for him, afcer a twelvemonth's peda- 

 goguing, accepted the happier appointment 

 of tutor to Stillingfleet's son, to reside in 

 the family, and accompany his pupil to 

 Oxford. Stillingfbet's connexions thus be- 

 came Bentley's ; and, what occurs to few, he 

 had thus also the opportunity of extending 

 his acquaintance among his cotemporaries at 

 both Universities. Bentley entered the 

 church at rather a later period of life than 

 usual ; but within the first year of his ordi- 

 nation, Stillingfleet, then become Bishop of 

 Worcester, made him his chaplain, and pro- 

 cured him a stall in his own cathedral. 

 Other occurrences, in quick succession, 

 brought his name in ora virum, and marked 

 him out as a man qualified, and at the same 

 time destined, for higher employments his 

 Ep. ad Millium, a learned letter upon scores 

 of learned topics with whicli the professed 

 object had nothing to do ; his appointment 

 as King's Librarian ; and, above all, the 

 Boyle lecture, to which he had the distin- 

 guished honour of being the first appointed, 

 and in which, by the way, he was the first 

 person who attempted a popular account of 

 Newton's recent discoveries. The Phalaris 

 controversy 'established his reputation for 

 unrivalled sagacity in learned criticism. 



Stillingfleet died when Bentley was thirty- 

 seven ; but he was then able to stand on his 

 own legs. The very next year he was made 

 Master of Trinity, and, almost immediately 

 after, Archdeacon of Ely, and a short time 

 would doubtless have seated him quietly on 

 the episcopal bench, but for his own official 

 intemperance, which at times made it dis- 

 creditable for his friends to assist his farther 

 advancement. Nor was he to be easily satis- 

 fied. At one time he refused the bishopric 

 of Bristol ; and being asked by the Duke of 

 Newcastle what would satisfy, he replied, 

 What would not make him wish for more : 

 and, at a later period, and one of less expec- 

 tations, he declined the deanery of Lichfield, 

 because a prebend of Westminster was not 

 to go with it. The Regius Professorship 

 of Divinity, however, he seized by main 

 force, or, rather, by a sort of trickery that 

 would have sunk irrecoverably to the lowest 

 depths any other man living. Encroaching, 

 at last, beyond endurance, upon the rights 

 of the fellows of his college, they appealed to 

 the visiter, which gave Bentley an opportu- 

 nity of raising the question of who was the 

 visiter, the Crown or the Bishop of Ely, 

 which led the way to endless litigations. In 

 the mean while, Bentley pursued his own 



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