Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/225

Rh prove that the nightingales in that part of the world sung in elegiac measure. And the misfortune of it is that these very are called  but a few verses before:

And I hope Aristophanes understood Greek, and was no asinus ad lyram. As strong proofs as these may seem, I have still behind one authority more, which will go farther with Dr Bentley than any I have yet brought: 'tis his own. He, p. 139 of his Dissertation, tells us that somebody made an edition of Æsop's Fables, in elegiac verse, and after giving us several instances of the kind, he adds that some of them (i. e. of the elegiac fables) were all in hexameters. I'd advise him, therefore, to call in this criticism, and his dirty proverb along with it, for fear it should stick where he has not a mind it should.

He has still one way left of disproving this piece of 'putid formality,' and that is by denying that Stesichorus and Phalaris were acquainted. 'Tis a negative, and therefore pretty hard to be made out; let us see how