See p. 85, 1. 32 (note). It is not easy to account for the exaggerated bitterness of Swift's attack upon Bentley except on the theory that his hostility nursed itself on its own heat. Bentley had not attacked Swift personally; he belonged to the political party to which Swift at this time ostensibly belonged and it seems strange that Bentley's arraignment of Temple, which certainly did not exceed the limits then common in literary controversy should have provoked such wrath in Swift. The strong language used by others of the participants in the fight did not prevent subsequent friendship. Bentley seems to have been afterwards on friendly terms both with Boyle and his ally, Atterbury. On the whole the current opinion seems to have been that Bentley, the weight of whose scholarship was not felt by his own age, was worsted in the fight. Garth probably expressed the general view, when in the Dispensary he wrote, ' And to a Bentley 'tis we owe a Boyle ', — a compliment which Boyle repaid by laudatory verses.