Gibbon, Edward, 1737-1794; Historians -- Great Britain -- Biography
and best editor of Virgil, Professor Heyne of Gottingen, who
acquiesces in my confutation, and styles the unknown author, doctus
- - - et elegantissimus Britannus. But I cannot resist the
temptation of transcribing the favourable judgment of Mr. Hayley,
himself a poet and a scholar "An intricate hypothesis, twisted into
a long and laboured chain of quotation and argument, the
Dissertation on the Sixth Book of Virgil, remained some time
unrefuted. - - - At length, a superior, but anonymous, critic
arose, who, in one of the most judicious and spirited essays that
our nation has produced, on a point of classical literature,
completely overturned this ill-founded edifice, and exposed the
arrogance and futility of its assuming architect." He even
condescends to justify an acrimony of style, which had been gently
blamed by the more unbiassed German; "Paullo acrius quam velis - - -
perstrinxit." But I cannot forgive myself the contemptuous
treatment of a span who, with all his faults, was entitled to my
esteem; [Note: The Divine Legation of Moses is a monument, already
crumbling in the dust, of the vigour and weakness of the human mind.
If Warburton's new argument proved anything, it would be a
demonstration against the legislator, who left his people without
the knowledge of a future state. But some episodes of the work, on
the Greek philosophy, the hieroglyphics of Egypt, &c. are entitled
to the praise of learning, imagination, and discernment.] and I can
less forgive, in a personal attack, the cowardly concealment of my
name and character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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