The Works of Richard Bentley D D Author:Richard Bentley Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: receding from the right and power that he had given me to demand it. W. Wotton. The reader will please to observe, that Mr. Wotton's Discourse was first print... more »ed 1694; and Phalaris the year after. A plain argument, that the Examiner is quite out in his reckoning, when he pretends that I first engaged in that Dissertation, purely to fall foul on his Book. I was so far from harbouring such vengeance in my heart, that if the Editor, or any body from him, had but given me leave to say in his name, That he had been misinformed; all this story, and all the errors of his Edition, had slept quiet in their obscurity. About nine months after my Dissertation was printed, the Editor of Phalaris obliged the world with a second piece, called Dr. Bentley's Dissertations examined. He has begun that elaborate work with stating an account of this story in opposition to what I had said of it: and that he does upon the credit and testimonies of the Bookseller and the Collator, and of a third Informant, who overheard some discourse of mine. I will give a clear and full answer to every part of their depositions; and I question not but to make it plain, that the Examiner has been imposed on, not only by the author of Phalaris's Letters, but by others that are every way of lower qualifications than he. The Bookseller avers, That he was employed by the Honourable Mr. Boyle, and by him only, to borrow the MS. of Phalaris from Dr. Bentlcy. And, after about Nine montlis' solicitation, says he, it was delivered into my custody, without any time limited for the return of it (p. 6). I now perceive, I had more reason than I was then aware of, when I said in my Dissertation, that a falsehood about time was the truest and surest method of detecting impostures. And Mr. B., I hope, will allow that a chronolo...« less