Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/283

Rh make the man a jest upon whom they are written, but a further jest, if he attempt to answer them gravely. However, he did what he could in revenge, he endeavoured to set those whom he envied at variance among themselves, and invented lies to promote his design. He told Eratosthenes, that Callimachus said, his extent of learning consisted but in a superficial knowledge of the sciences; and whispered Callimachus, that Eratosthenes only allowed him to have an artful habitual knack of versifying. He would have made Aristophanes believe, that Theocritus rallied his knowledge in editions, as a curious kind of trifling; and Theocritus, that Aristophanes derided the rustical simplicity of his shepherds. Though of all his stories, that which he most valued himself for, was his constant report, that every one whom he hated was a friend to Antiochus king of Syria, the enemy of Ptolemy.

But malice is unsuccessful when the character of its agent is known: they grew more friends to one another, by imagining, that even what had been said, as well as what had not, was all of Zoilus's invention; and as he grew more and more the common jest, their derision of him became a kind of life and cement to their conversation.

Contempt, poverty, and other misfortunes had now so assaulted him, that even they who abhorred his temper, contributed something to his: support, in common humanity. Yet still his envy.