Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/25

 Rh his best pupils to edit some classical author. In 1693, no doubt owing to Temple's Essay, he asked Boyle to prepare an edition of the Epistles of Phalaris. It was not to be expected that a boy of Boyle's age should be able to prepare, unaided, an edition of a Greek author; and it must have been understood in academic circles that Aldrich's young men relied upon their tutors for the learning to be put into their books: but no doubt many men resented the fraud of issuing, in the name of a boy, the work of his masters. During 1693 and 1694 Boyle worked at his edition.

Meanwhile an opponent to Sir William Temple's views was writing a book to demonstrate the folly of belittling the moderns in order to increase the reputation of the ancients. William Wotton had as a child exhibited the most wonderful precocity: at the age of six he knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; at ten he entered Cambridge; and at thirteen he obtained his degree. When Temple's Essay appeared he was about twenty-four years old. He proceeded to write