Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/229

Rh passage he has produced. He has lamed it in his quotation; I will give it the reader entire, "Croesus," says he, "will always be renowned for his humanity and benevolence, but the memory of the savage and inhuman Phalaris is everywhere detested." Could a better panegyric be made upon Hiero, in fewer words? Could anything be more artful than the pitching upon these two opposite instances, to set out his character by? Were a man to compliment some person in Dr Bentley's station, could he do it more effectually than by saying of him, that he had all the humanity and good nature of the Library-keeper at Cambridge, and none of the disobliging, rude qualities of him at St James's?

After all, the Dr's opinion and mine upon this point are not so very distant as he may imagine, for I agree with him, that there was no extraordinary dearness between Stesichorus and Phalaris; nor do the Letters themselves imply that there was. They say indeed that Phalaris obliged and courted Stesichorus, out of vanity, or a real esteem of his merit. And Stesichorus could not but pay some regard to Phalaris