Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/39

 generosity in allowing himself to be used as a stalking-horse for his tutors. The book although full of every sort of blunder was also full of life, and had a kind of wit. Its success was immediate: every one, except a few obscure scholars, thought that Bentley was defeated, and as Budgell says, 'the world was pleased to see a young man of quality and fortune get the better of an old critic,' —a sentence which exhibits the tone of the controversy. Bentley, it may be remarked, was thirty-six years of age.

Temple, who had suffered so severely at the hands of Wotton and Bentley, was delighted with Boyle's reply. He had himself begun a reply to Wotton but abandoned it, evidently feeling that he was unequal to the task: and Swift took up the quarrel for him. But of this more will be said in its place.

Boyle's Examination advanced the quarrel about the