RICHARD BENTLEY. — Anglican scholar and Hellenist, born at Dulton on 27 January 1662, died at Cambridge on 14 September 1742. He studied at Cambridge and was ordained in 1690.
His first of eight lectures in defence of the Christian religion, *A Confutation of Atheism* (1692), became famous; in it he demonstrated the existence of God based on Newton’s recent discoveries. He was appointed Royal Librarian in 1694 and in 1699 Master of Trinity College, where he remained until his death despite the unrelenting hostility of the Fellows. Bentley is credited with correcting numerous ancient texts and establishing scientific criticism. In his *Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris* (1699), he exposed the evident inauthenticity of those epistles. Among his most renowned works is *Remarks upon a Late Discourse of Freethinking* (1713), in which he ridicules Anthony Collins as a deist and critic of the Christian Creed.
His style was always sharp and precise, often sarcastic, and sometimes imbued with a vein of humour.