GUY, cardinal, born at Ferrara, in the year 1579. He went to study at Padua, where he made a considerable proficiency in polite literature. Upon his leaving the university, he went to reside at Rome, where he became universally esteemed. He was sent nuncio to Flanders, and then to France; in both which employments his behaviour was such as gave great satisfaction to Paul V. who made him a cardinal, which was the last promotion he made, a little before his death, which happened on the 28th of January 1621. Bentivoglio was at this time in France, where Louis XIII. and all the French court congratulated him on his new dignity; and when he returned to Rome, his Christian majesty entrusted him with the management of the French affairs at that court. Pope Urban VII. had a high regard for him on account of his fidelity, disinterestedness, and consummate knowledge in business. He was beloved by the people, and esteemed by the cardinals; and his qualities were such, that in all probability he would have been raised to the pontificate on the death of Urban, which happened on the 29th of July 1644; but having gone to the conclave during the time of the most intolerable heats at Rome, it affected his body to such a degree, that he could not sleep for 11 nights afterwards; and this want of rest threw him into a fever, of which he died the 7th of September 1644, aged 65. He has left several works; the most remarkable of which are, A History of the Civil Wars of Flanders, An Account of Flanders, with Letters and Memoirs.

a small town of Italy in the territory of Bologna, with a castle, situated in E. Long. 11. 34. N. Lat. 44. 47.

BENNETT, RICHARD, an eminent critic and divine, was born at Oulton, in the parish of Rothwell, near Wakefield. His ancestors, who were of some consideration, possessed an estate, and had a seat at Hepenstall, in the parish of Halifax. His grandfather James Bentley was a captain in King Charles I.'s army at the time of the civil wars; and being involved in the fate of his party, had his house plundered, his estate confiscated, and was himself carried prisoner to Pontefract Castle, where he died. Thomas Bentley, the son of James, and father of Dr Bentley, married the daughter of Richard Willis of Oulton, who had been a major in the royal army. This lady, who was a woman of exceeding good understanding, taught her son Richard his accidence. To his grandfather Willis, who was left his guardian, he was in part indebted for his education; and having gone through the grammar school at Wakefield with singular reputation, both for his proficiency and his exact and regular behaviour, he was admitted of St John's college, Cambridge, under the tuition of Mr Johnson, on the 24th of May 1676; being then only four months above 14 years of age. On the 22d of March 1681-2, he stood candidate for a fellowship, and would have been unanimously elected, had he not been excluded by the statutes on account of his being too young for priest's orders. He was then a junior bachelor, and but little more than 19 years old. It was soon after this that he became a schoolmaster at Spalding. But that he did not continue long in this situation is certain from a letter of his grandfather Willis's, still preserved in the family, from which it appears, that he was with Dr Stillingleet at the deanery of St Paul's on the 25th of April 1683. He had been recommended by his college to the dean as preceptor to his son; and Dr Stillingleet gave Mr Bentley his choice whether he would carry his pupil to Cambridge or Oxford. He fixed upon the latter university account of the Bodleian library, to the consulting of the manuscripts of which he applied with the closest attention. Being now of age, he made over a small estate which he derived from his family to his elder brother, and immediately laid out the money he obtained for it in the purchase of books. In July 1683, he took the degree of master of arts at St John's college, Cambridge. In 1692, his patron being advanced to the see of Worcester, collated him to a prebend in that church, and also made him his domestic chaplain. That learned prelate, as well as Dr Will. Lloyd, then bishop of Litchfield, had seen many proofs of our author's extraordinary merit, when they concurred in recommending him as a fit person to open the lectures upon Mr Boyle's foundation, in defence of natural and revealed religion. This gave him a fine opportunity of establishing his fame. He saw it well; and resolved to push it to the utmost. Sir Isaac Newton's Principia had been published but a few years, and the book was little known and less understood. Mr Bentley therefore determined to spare no pains in displaying to the best advantage the profound demonstrations which that excellent work furnished in proof of a Deity; and that nothing might be wanting to complete the design, he applied to the author, and received from him the solution of some difficulties which had not fallen within the plan of his treatise*. In short, our author's sermons at Boyle's lectures were universally admired, and highly raised his reputation as a preacher; notwithstanding that escape which laid him open to the raillery of Dr Keil, viz. of proving the moon not to turn round her axis, because she always shows the same face to the earth. In 1693, he was made keeper of the royal library at St James's.

In the following year arose the famous dispute between him and the honourable Mr Boyle, in relation to the epistles of Phalaris; of which Mr Boyle had published a very fine edition, with a Latin version of the text. These epistles the Doctor affected to be spurious, the production of some sophist, and altogether contemptible as a literary performance. The principal pieces which appeared in this noted controversy were, 1. Dr Bentley's dissertation upon the epistles of Theophrastus, Socrates, Euripides, Phalaris, and the Fables of Aesop, at the end of the second edition of Mr Wotton's Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning: but afterwards printed by Dr Bentley entire, and added with great additions to his farther defence of it, in answer to Mr Boyle. 2. "Dr Bentley's Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of Aesop examined by the Honourable Charles Boyle, Esq." a book more commonly known by the title of Boyle against Bentley. 3. Dr Bentley's Answer to the above, commonly known by the name of Bentley against Boyle; a curious piece, interspersed with a great deal of true wit and humour. From the caprice or partiality of the age the victory was adjudged to Mr Boyle, and the ridicule of the wits exercised upon Dr Bentley. Thus Dr Garth, in the Dispensary,

So Diamonds take a lustre from their foil, And to a BENTLEY 'tis we owe a BOYLE.

Dr Bentley had also some wags who were his enemies even at Cambridge, who drew his picture in the hands of Phalaris's guards, who were putting him into their master's bull, and out of the Doctor's mouth came a label with these words, I had rather be roasted than BOYLED. And Dean Swift, in his Tale of a Tub, had some strokes at Dr Bentley upon this occasion, but more especially in his Battle of the Books, where, on account of Dr Bentley's Dissertation of Phalaris, &c. being annexed to Mr Wotton's Reflections on Learning, and their being great friends, he makes Mr Wotton and Dr Bentley, standing side by side, in each other's defence, to be both transfix'd to the ground by one stroke of the javelin of Mr Boyle, and this he heightens by the simile of a cook's spitting a brace of woodcocks. Nay, so strong is the influence of literary prejudice and fashion, that many even of Dr Bentley's friends considered Boyle's Examination as unanswerable. Nor could they be convinced of the contrary, till the Doctor, first asking them where it was so impregnable, and confuting one article after another upon the spot, as fast as they instanced, assured them it was all of the same kind. This he effectually showed in his answer. It now, however, seems to be the settled opinion of the literary world, that the Doctor has not only the evident advantage in respect of learning and argument, but that he is little, if at all, inferior to his antagonist in point of wit and smartness. It may not, however, be amiss to recite a few testimonies on the subject. Mr Walpole, speaking of Mr Boyle's translation of the Epistles of Phalaris, says, "This work occasioned the famous controversy with Dr Bentley;—who alone, and unworsted, sustained the attacks of the brightest geniuses in the learned world, and whose fame has not suffered by the wit to which it gave occasion." Mr Towers, in his British Biography, expresses himself in the following terms: "In the controversy between him and Mr Boyle, the popular clamour, indeed, was in favour of the latter; but Bentley's is unquestionably a much more valuable performance than that of Boyle. The latter, considered as a mere English composition, has the advantage in point of style; and pleased the generality, by the personal satire which it contained against Dr Bentley, who had many enemies. But Bentley had greatly the superiority with respect to just reasoning, critical sagacity, and extent of learning; and his vindication of himself also contained many shrewd and sarcastical strokes against Mr Boyle and his performance. Much has been said in favour of Mr Boyle, as a genteel and polite writer; and it must be confessed, that Dr Bentley's manner was often too affluing, and that he was deficient in point of civility. But notwithstanding this, there was, perhaps, a much greater want of real candour and politeness, whatever affectation of them there might be, in the very contemptuous and unfair manner in which Dr Bentley was treated throughout Mr Boyle's book, than in any thing which Bentley had said against Boyle. Bentley, with all his foibles, was too respectable a character to be a proper subject of such treatment: though Swift, Garth, and Pope, have joined in countenancing the popular prejudices against him." Mr Dodwell, who resided at Oxford during the controversy, who made himself in some fort a party in it, and who had a very particular court paid to him by the Christ-Church men, declared to them that he never learned so much from any book of the size in his life,