reflected upon the literary reputation of both Temple and Boyle, some of their friends, with chivalrous devotion, came forward on their behalf; Swift, in his _Tale of the Tub_, and his _Battle of the Books_, tilting his lance on the side of his patron Temple; and Atterbury--associated with others under Boyle’s name, in an examination of Bentley’s Dissertations--appearing as the champion of his late pupil. Though no match for Bentley in scholarship, Atterbury possessed immense power in respect of rhetorical style, clever sophistry, cutting sarcasm, and personal invective; and these were employed with such effect as for awhile to overwhelm the illustrious scholar, and to silence his charges against the defenders of Phalaris. However, the triumph was short; Bentley resumed his attacks, and demolished the work of his critics, in a book which, for learning, logic, and humour, is perhaps unrivalled in that class of productions. Atterbury must have been sorely vexed by his discomfiture when in 1700 he threw himself into the great ecclesiastical contest of the period, and published his _Rights, Powers, and Privileges of an English Convocation_. [Sidenote: 1700.] Indulging in his fondness for personal attack, he abused the recent volume by Dr. Wake as a shallow and empty performance, deficient in historical learning and destructive of Church liberty. After referring to the ancient practice of holding provincial Synods, he treated Convocations as coming in their room, and as constituting necessary appendages to English Parliaments. He insisted much upon the fact of the Clergy having been summoned by the _præmonentes_ clause in the writs addressed to spiritual Peers, and regretted that by a political blunder the legislative representation of the Church had become separated from the legislative representation of the State. Without, however, attempting to revive obsolete proceedings, he asserted most pertinaciously the indefeasible right of the clerical order to sit in Convocation, and to petition, advise, address, represent, and declare their judgment upon their own affairs, notwithstanding their inability to make, or attempt, any new canons without express Royal authority. [Sidenote: CONVOCATION.]