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present a copy of that portrait from which the print hereunto annexed was taken.

In the oriental languages, in mathematics, and even in anatomy, he was deeply learned; in short, his mind was fitted for elaborate and profound researches, as his works more fully testify. It is to be lamented that his famous work, de legibus Naturæ, was allowed to come before the public with so many and such glaring errors of the press, which his absence and considerable distance from London disabled him from correcting. I had a copy interleaved and corrected and amended throughout by Doctor Bentley, who, being on a visit to my father at his parsonage-house in Northamptonshire, undertook that kind office, and completed it most effectually. This book gave, when last at Cambridge, to the library of Trinity College; and if, by those means, it shall find a passport to the University press, I shall have cause to congratulate myself for having so happily bestowed it.

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Of Doctor Richard Bentley, my maternal grandfather, I shall next take leave to speak. Of him I have perfect recollection. His person, his dignity, his language and his love

fixed my early attention, and stamped both his image and his words upon my memory. His literary works are known to all, his private character is still misunderstood by many; to that I shall confine myself, and, putting aside the enthusiasm of a descendant, I can assert, with the veracity of a biographer, that he was neither cynical, as some have represented him, nor overbearing and fastidious in the degree, as he has been described by many. Swift, when he foisted him into his vulgar Battle of the Books, neither lowers Bentley's fame nor elevates his own; and the petulant poet, who thought he had hit his manner, when he made him haughtily call to Walker for his hat, gave a copy as little like the character of Bentley, as his translation is like the original of Homer. That Doctor Walker, vice-master of Trinity-College, was the friend of my grandfather, and a frequent guest at his table, is true; but it was not in Doctor Bentley's nature to treat him with contempt, nor did his harmless character inspire it. As for the hat, I must acknowledge it was of formidable dimensions, yet I was accustomed to treat it with great familiarity, and if it had ever been further from the