Note 736 — Chapter XXVIII

Bishop Monk observes that Le Clerc “seems to have been the first person who understood the power which may be exercised over literature by a reviewer.” Life of Bentley, p. 209. This may be true, especially as he was nearly the first reviewer, and certainly better than his predecessors. But this remark is followed by a sarcastic animadversion upon Le Clerc’s ignorance of Greek metres, and by the severe assertion, that “by an absolute system of terror, he made himself a despot in the republic of letters.” The former is so far true, that he neither understood the Greek metres as well as Bentley and Porson, or those who have trod in their steps, nor supposed that all learning was concentred in that knowledge, as we seemed in danger of supposing within my memory. The latter is not warranted by the general character of Le Clerc’s criticisms, which, where he has no personal quarrel, is temperate and moderate, neither traducing men, nor imputing motives; and consequently unlike certain periodical criticism of a later date.