Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/278

204 no notice of the rest of his book, which is nothing but heaps of errors delivered in the most arrogant and insulting language, I'm content to be tried by this very paragraph of his, which of us two seem to have sat for this picture. He has cited here fifteen passages out of my whole Dissertation, which he pretends are delivered in an "assuming and positive" way, and yet (he says) are "certainly false." Whereas every one of them are true, and may be "perfectly cleared," except one small mistake about, and that, too, is delivered without any "assuming" expression. But let us see Mr B.'s behaviour: "Where the contrary (says he) is ; as it is, and shall be proved to be, in those instances here referred to." Now if this be not an "assuming and positive way," what is? And yet in fourteen of his fifteen instances he is miserably mistaken.

6. "To depart from the common ways of writing, on purpose to shew exactness, is a piece of affectation that savours of pedantry." Upon which article he accuses my spelling Taurominium; for he says, "it's writ Tauromenium, both by ancients and moderns." Now if the contrary of this be "certainly