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CORNELL 
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Cornell University Library 
 PR 3724.B3 1890 
 
 The battle of the books. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013200534 
 
THE 
 
 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS, 
 
 BY 
 
 JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 SEttii an KntroUuctton anu Notes, 
 
 CHARLES EGEI^TON, M.A., 
 Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 DUBLIN: 
 WILLIAM McGEE, i-S NASSAU STREET. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. 
 
 1890. 
 
 S' 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Battle of the Books has been appointed by 
 the Examiners of the Royal University of Ireland 
 as part of the Honour Course at the Matriculation 
 Examination. As far as I am aware, no anno- 
 tated edition exists ; and I experienced consider- 
 able difficulty in preparing candidates for the 
 Royal University owing to the absence of such a 
 work. I have therefore ventured to supply the 
 want, and trust that this little book will be useful 
 to those for whom it is intended. In my Notes 
 I have endeavoured to be as concise as possible, 
 only giving derivations where it seemed absolutely 
 necessary. I have to express my thanks to the 
 Rev. Dr. Gwynn for the valuable help he has 
 given me in elucidating some of the most obscure 
 passages in Swift's work. 
 
 Charles Egerton. 
 
 Trinity College, Dublin. 
 May, 1890. 
 
LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 JONATHAN SWIFT was bom in Dublin in 1667. 
 He came of a staunch Tory and Royalist family, 
 for his grandfather, who was a clergyman, had fought 
 for King Charles in the Great Rebellion, and indeed had 
 expended all his fortune in defending his principles. 
 This sturdy old Churchman — Thomas Swift by name — 
 married Miss Elizabeth Dryden, of the same family as 
 the poet Dryden, which accounts for the cousinship ot 
 Dryden and Swift. Thomas Swift had many sonsj but 
 we need only mention two in connection with the pre- 
 sent subject. Of these the first is Godwin Swift, who 
 came over to Ireland to practise as a barrister, and who 
 ere long amassed a considerable fortune. The other is 
 Jonathan Swift (father of Dean Swift), who also sought 
 his fortune in Ireland — less successfully, however, than 
 his brother, for he died in poor circumstances, leaving 
 his widow dependent on the bounty of Godwin. 
 Jonathan Swift the younger was not born until after his 
 father'^ death, and was of course a further tax on the 
 generosity of his uncle. The latter soon began to 
 shorten the allowance made to Mrs. Swift and her son, 
 owing probably to a series of unsuccessful speculations 
 in which he engaged; nevertheless he provided for the 
 
4 LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 education of young Jonathan by sending laim to Kil- 
 kenny College. Here the boy remained till the age ot 
 fourteen, when he entered Trinity College, Dublin. 
 
 Swift's University career seems to have been a very 
 unhappy one, the chief reason of this being thesmallness 
 of his allowance, and the grudging manner in which it 
 was dealt him by his uncle, of whom he afterwards 
 spoke with great bitterness. He seems to have studied 
 hard, but not very systematically, as he only obtained his 
 degree " speciali gratia," which implied a deficiency in 
 one or more subjects of his examination. It was 
 necessary at that time for each candidate for the degree 
 of B.A. to sustain a part in a philosophical discussion, 
 and in ^his Swift appears to have fallen short of the re- 
 quired standard, which explains his sarcastic reference 
 to the debates of Sophisters, contained in the text. The 
 Goddess of Criticism says : — 
 
 " By me children grow wiser than their parents ; by 
 me sophisters debate and conclude upon the depths of 
 knowledge." The term " sophister " is applied, in Dublin 
 University, to students during their third and fourth 
 years. 
 
 When Swift had taken his B.A. degree, the allowance 
 made him by his uncle ceased altogether, and there 
 being little prospect of advancement in Ireland at this 
 time, owing to the disturbed state of the country, he 
 determined to seek employnient in England. Before 
 doing so, he consulted his mother, who had settled in the 
 town of Leicester some years before, and she obtained 
 for him a post as secretary to Sir William Temple, to 
 whose wife she was related. 
 
 For some time Swift lived almost exclusively at 
 Temple's country seat. Moor Park* ; he was, however, 
 
 * In Surrey, near Farnham. 
 
LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 5 
 
 discontented, as the appointment which he held was a 
 very subordinate one, and he and his patron did not 
 agree very well ; therefore after he had been at Moor Park 
 rather more than a year, he returned to Ireland in 
 order to seek some more congenial employment. In 
 this he failed, and was therefore compelled to re-enter 
 Temple's service. 
 
 After many years of fruitless waiting, Swift now de- 
 termined finally on entering the Church. He had made 
 the acquaintance of King William III. at Moor Park, 
 and is said to have received promises of advancement 
 from that monarch; but he did not receive any substantial 
 mark of the royal favour. While waiting for a prebend 
 to fall vacant, Swift had a violent quarrel with Temple 
 and left him. Shortly afterwards he was ordained ( 1 694), 
 and went to Ireland as rector of Kilroot, but growing 
 tired of the monotony of the work of his small parish, he 
 soon returned to Moor Park for the third time. 
 
 At this time Swift was entrusted with the' education of 
 Esther Johnson, then a charming girl of fifteen years of 
 age, over whose after life he was destined to exercise 
 such an influence. Esther was the daughter of Sir 
 William Temple's steward ; and on the death of her 
 father, while she was yet an infant, was left dependent on 
 Sir William's bounty. She was kindly treated by Temple, 
 and as we see, her education was carefully looked to. 
 Swift had met her before this at Moor Park, but at a time 
 when she was much too young to profit by his instruc- 
 tions.^ Now, however, she proved an apt pupil, and her 
 love of learning soon extended to her teacher. Swift — 
 cold and callous though his outward manner seemed — 
 undoubtedly possessed the faculty of gaining the affec- 
 tion of women when he chose; for not only did the 
 
6 LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 passion of Stella — as he called Esther Johnson in affec- 
 tionate familiarity — grow with her growth and strengthen 
 with her strength, but as we shall read afterwards, another 
 of Swift's pupils became violently enamoured of him. 
 For three years did this tuition last, until in 1699, on the 
 death of Temple, Swift returned to Ireland in the capacity 
 of chaplain to the new Lord Justice, Lord Berkely. 
 This, he expected, would lead to some preferment; 
 but he was disappointed, and had to accept the minor 
 livings of Laracor and Rathbeggan, in the county of 
 Meath. Next year (1701) he took the degree of Doctor 
 of Divinity in the University of Oxford. Swift was now, 
 and continued for some time to be, a supporter of the 
 Whigs, into which party he had been drawn by his 
 patron Sir William Temple. In 170 1, he threw himself 
 ' actively into politics, and began his career as a writer of 
 , pamphlets by " The Dissensions at Athens and Rome," 
 in which he exhibited the state of the country under 
 feigned titles. By this he gained the friendship of 
 Somers and many other powerful Whig nobles, and 
 received promises of help and patronage from several — 
 indeed he cherished hopes of receiving a bishopric — in 
 which hope, however, he was doomed to be disappointed 
 after many years' waiting. 
 
 Stella could not live for long apart from Swift, and 
 therefore she came to Ireland in 1701, and there she 
 spent the remainder of her life, if we except one or two 
 short visits that she paid to England. She was accom- 
 panied by her friend Mrs. Dingley, who lived with her 
 always from this time until her death. When Swift was 
 away, she resided at his vicarage ; when, however, he 
 returned, Stella removed to lodgings in the neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 7 
 
 It was about this time (1708) that Swift wrote his 
 " Predictions for the year 1708," with the object of ridi- 
 culing an astrological impostor named Partridge, who 
 . was in the habit of publishing an almanac of prophecies 
 at the beginning of each year. Swift, in the assumed 
 character of Isaac Bickerstaff, wrote a series of predic- 
 tions in the fullest detail. Among these he asserts that 
 he has found out that Partridge will infallibly die on the 
 29th of March " of a raging fever." Swift's, or rather 
 BickerstafFs, almanac circulated among the people, who 
 read it eagerly; and on a pamphlet being published 
 shortly after the 29th of March (also by Swift), giving 
 details of Partridge's death, it was received in perfect 
 good faith, and believed implicitly. Partridge, however, 
 who objected to being killed off in this summary manner, 
 protested through the public prints that he was not dead; 
 and, indeed, had some difficulty in persuading the public 
 that he was not. Bickerstaff became so popular when 
 the jest became known, that Steele started his " Tatler" 
 under the name, and Swift aided him with several 
 papers. 
 
 In the meantime the Whig party had grown unpopular 
 with the nation. The War of the Spanish Succession, 
 carried on with brilliant success by Marlborough, had at 
 first carried away the nation in a flood of enthusiasm, 
 roused by the victories of Blenheim, Ramillies, and 
 Oudenarde. But soon the people began to count the 
 cost of their successes, and opposition arose to a contest 
 from which England had little to gain and much to lose. 
 Marlborough, too, by his rapacity and peculation, was 
 gaining many enemies, and his wife, for a long time the 
 chief friend and adviser of Queen Anne, was being 
 supplanted in the royal favour by Abigail Hill, after- 
 
» LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 wards known as Mrs. Masham. Anne was a staunch 
 Tory till the end of her life, and was even suspected by 
 some of Jacobite proclivities, which the influence of 
 Mrs. Masham would tend to confirm. In 1710 the trial 
 and condemnation of Sacheverell caused an outburst of 
 popular rage. The Whigs, suspected of favouring the 
 Dissenters, were attacked by the High Church Party, 
 and the people, and even the Sovereign, lent their in- 
 fluence also. The ministers were therefore obliged to 
 resign office. 
 
 A new ministry was formed under Harley and St. John, 
 and Swift went over to them. He had been, some years 
 before, the mainstay of the Whigs by his vigorous pamph- 
 lets, and his party had unquestionably treated him with 
 ingratitude in leaving him without preferment. It was 
 mere chance that had brought him into contact with the 
 Whig party in the first instance ; and had he never been 
 in Temple's service, it is very questionable whether he 
 would ever have joined it. A High Churchman, he, no 
 doubt, was out of touch with a body that owed its origin 
 to Puritans, though, of course, at this period its connec- 
 tion with Puritanism was dissolved. The Whigs, too, 
 were suspected of a desire to curtail the Church endow- 
 ments — especially in Ireland — and Swift was drawn into 
 the opposite party, therefore, by his pecuniary interests. 
 The traditions of his family were all Tory. His grand- 
 father, as has been mentioned above, adhered to the 
 cause of King Charles all through the hopeless gloom of 
 the Commonwealth period, and it is hardly possible that 
 Swift should not have been influenced by the stories that 
 were current about him. 
 
 Again, being an ardent Churchman, he viewed with 
 dislike and suspicion the removal of the disabilities under 
 
I^IFE OF JONATHAN SWifT. 9 
 
 which Dissenters laboured — a movement favoured by 
 the Whig Government. Besides this, he had been re- 
 pulsed in certain demands which he had made on behalf 
 of the Irish Church in respect of grants of money. All 
 these circumstances contributed to drive him over to the 
 Tories ; and when Addison resigned his post as Chief 
 Secretary of Ireland, the last tie that bound him to the 
 Whigs was broken. Henceforth he followed the Tory 
 party, and aided it with all the wit and eloquence of 
 which he was master. 
 
 But though the Whigs had fallen, they were still for- 
 midable, and, the Tory party being divided into the 
 Jacobites and those who wished to preserve the Consti- 
 tution as arranged by the Act of Settlement, there was 
 considerable opposition to be feared by the Government, 
 of which Harley soon became the acknowledged chief. 
 Swift used all the influence of his ready pen to support 
 Harley's administration, and in the Examiner defended 
 the Government with the greatest ability. He ruthlessly 
 held up to public scorn all the weak points of the late 
 Ministry, and inveighed in unmeasured terms against the 
 war policy which they had followed. The cry for peace 
 was raised by him in his pamphlet, " On the Conduct of 
 the Allies," in which he attacked Marlborough, whose 
 arrogance was destined soon to lead to his downfall. 
 This happened in 171 1, when the Tories, freed from 
 a most dangerous foe, began to seek an opportunity of 
 bringing the war to an end. 
 
 It would appear that services so eminent as those of 
 Swift could not be left unrewarded ; but the man to whom 
 the Tory party owed its very life was allowed to linger 
 on in hopes of reward-^put off with compliments and 
 promises. But the Government had no ordinary man to 
 
10 LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 deal with, and Swift soon gave them to understand that 
 unless he received some adequate return for his support, 
 he would withdraw it. This meant, if not actual ruin to 
 the Tory party, at least a very serious loss, for no writer 
 on either side was able to vie with Swift in trenchant 
 power of satire, which, over and over again, had caused 
 the Whig leaders to writhe in impotent rage. It is prob- 
 able that Harley would have furthered Swift's wishes for 
 preferment ; but the latter had lost the Queen's good- 
 will by an ill-advised attack on the Duchess of Somerset, 
 who was at this time a high favourite at Court. This at- 
 tack was contained in a few lines, called " The Windsor 
 Prophecy," and the accusations in the poem were such 
 that no woman could forgive. High dignitaries of the 
 Church, too, used their iniluence against him on account 
 of the profanity of his " Tale of a Tub " (1704), which, 
 though published anonymously, was known to have 
 emanated from his hands. Still, Swift's claims could no 
 longer be disregarded, and he was at length offered the 
 Deanery of St, Patrick's Cathedral, in Dublin, which he 
 accepted (1713). But the Government were unable to 
 do without his support, and he was recalled to England 
 for long periods in order to help with his advice in the 
 critical questions of the times. 
 
 The war had been brought to an end by the Treaty of 
 Utrecht ; but a storm of unpopularity was roused by its 
 terms. The Whigs, of course, were loudest in their out- 
 cry ; and it was to stem this torrent of opposition that 
 Swift was called upon. Steele had attacked the Govern- 
 ment, and Swift replied in a pamphlet, entitled, "The 
 Public Spirit of the Whigs." 
 
 After this visit to England, Swift withdrew for a time 
 from political controversy, and returned to his duties in 
 
LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 11 
 
 Ireland. This was in 17 14. During his many prolonged 
 visits to England, he had become acquainted with Mrs. 
 Vanhomrigh, whose daughter Hester soon began to 
 admire Swift's great intellectual power. As in the case of 
 Stella, this aidmiration became a most violent passion, and 
 when Swift came to Ireland, he was followed by letters 
 couched in terms of the greatest devotion. He seems to 
 have replied to these with more or less aflfection, instead 
 of endeavouring at once to put an end to the corre- 
 spondence. Such a step would have been very difficult 
 and painful, for he had been insensibly drawn into sharing 
 all his hopes and plans with Vanessa (as he christened 
 Miss Vanhomrigh), and she had established a claim on 
 his regard by her warm sympathy. Mr. Henry Craik, 
 in his "Life of Swift," distinguishes between Swift's 
 passion for Stella and that for Vanessa. " The former," 
 he says, " was a deep and lasting love, and was irrespec- 
 tive of other considerations." His feeling for Vanessa 
 was quite different, and had been roused by the girl's 
 ingenuous admiration, and the lively interest which 
 she took in all his plans. Stella never seems to have 
 sought to share Swift's confidence in business matters. 
 Vanessa's whole influence was to a large extent based 
 on this foundation. We can easily understand what 
 a struggle Swift must have undergone to put an end 
 to the embarrassing letters which Vanessa now began 
 to write him, and how difficult he must have found 
 it to explain to her his position with regard to Stella. 
 At all' events, he found it impossible to offer her this 
 explanation; and at length Vanessa came over to 
 Ireland in order to be near him, and settled near 
 Celbridge. Here Swift visited her very seldom, lest 
 scandal should be aroused; but the correspondence con- 
 
12 LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 tinued, and Swift celebrated the intercourse between them 
 in a poem, " Cadenus and Vanessa," in which he de- 
 describes the growth of their friendship. Matters con- 
 tinued thus for some time, until Vanessa, tortured by- 
 uncertainty as to Swift's relations with Stella, wrote to 
 the latter on the subject. Stella gave the letter to Swift, 
 who immediately sought out the writer, threw down the 
 letter before her without a word, and left her for ever. 
 Vanessa's death soon followed this rupture, and there is 
 not the least doubt that it was caused by the agony of 
 grief which followed Swift's cruel conduct. 
 
 The relationship between Swift and Stella is shrouded 
 in a mystery which will never be cleared up. That they 
 loved each other tenderly can admit of no doubt, and 
 some writers (among them, Mr. Henry Craik) go so far 
 as to say that they were secretly married. It is certain, 
 however, that the greatest precautions were taken to pre- 
 vent such marriage, if it ever took place, from being 
 known. Swift never saw Stella but in the presence of a 
 third person, and sedulously avoided giving any occasion 
 for public gossip to trifle with their names. Even after 
 her death, he did not disclose the marriage, though there 
 can be no doubt that Stella's loss drove him to the verge 
 of distraction, as we read in his journal. To discuss 
 this question fully is, of course, impossible in a short 
 memoir like the present. 
 
 In 1723, it was proposed to issue in Ireland a large 
 quantity of copper coins. These bore the name of 
 Wood's Halfpence, from the name of the patentee to 
 whom the coinage was entrusted, and were much below 
 their alleged value. Swift was furious at the idea of 
 flooding the country with base coin, and strained every 
 nerve to excite the public anger against the proposed 
 
LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 13 
 
 issue. He published six letters, signed " M. B. Drapier," 
 in which he warned the Nation against accepting the 
 coins ; and so eloquently did he oppose them, that Wood's 
 patent had to be cancelled. Harding, the printer of the 
 letters, was imprisoned ; but Swift escaped, notwith- 
 standing the fact that his identity with the " Drapier," 
 though not avowed by him, was well known. This raised 
 him to the pinnacle of popularity for a time, and wher- 
 ever he went in Dublin, he was surrounded by a shout- 
 ing crowd of admirers, to his intense disgust. 
 
 Soon after the publication of the " Drapier's Letters, " 
 Swift returned to Engldnd, longing for the congenial 
 society of literary men. Among the circle of his friends 
 he counted Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, and many other 
 writers of eminence. A club had been formed, called 
 the Scriblerus Club, all of whose members contributed 
 to a Miscellany, which soon became celebrated. The 
 object of the papers was to ridicule faults that were 
 prevalent in the writers of the age. Of the Scriblerus 
 Club Swift was a valued member, and contributed many 
 papers to the Miscellanies. It was during this visit to 
 England that he finished " Gulliver's Travels." This 
 is undoubtedly Swift's greatest work, and exhibits the 
 progress of the fierce misanthropy which embittered his 
 later years. The first part of the book — The Voyage to 
 Lilliput — is merely a good-humoured satire on the party 
 quarrels of the day. In the second part — The Voyage 
 to Brobdingnag, the land of giants — ^Swift begins to show 
 his dislike of his fellow-men ; and in the last part — The 
 Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms — he gives 
 vent to the fierce passion of hatred which then animated 
 him, of which the following will serve as a specimen : — 
 
 " My reconcilement to the Yahoo [i.e., human\ kind 
 
14 UrE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 in general might not be so difficult, if they would be 
 content with those vices and follies only which nature 
 hath entitled them to. I am not in the least provoked 
 at the sight of a lawyer, a pickpocket, a colonel, a fool, 
 a lord, a gamester, a physician, an evidence, a suborner, 
 an attorney, a traitor, or the like : this is all according 
 to the due course of things. But when I behold a lump 
 of deformity and diseases, both in body and mind, 
 smitten ynXh pride, it immediately breaks all the measures 
 of my patience ; neither shall I ever be able to compre- 
 hend how such an animal and such a vice could tally 
 together." 
 
 Swift now suffered a terrible blow in the death of 
 Stella. Under the cold exterior Swift bore a nature 
 red-hot with suppressed passion, which was all the fiercer 
 on account of its being suppressed, and which avenged 
 itself on him ultimately by depriving him of reason. 
 The death of Stella left him in a terrible state of loneli- 
 ness ; for though he had many and trusty friends, yet 
 nothing could compensate for the loss of her he had 
 loved so long. Possibly, too, his conscience may have 
 whispered that he had not done all in his power to make 
 her happy. His diary still survives; written on the 
 night when she whom he had fondly christened his star 
 was taken from him ; written to preserve with tender 
 care all the recollections of her that thronged into his 
 brain on that terrible evening. Few situations more 
 pathetic have been invented by the poet or novelist than 
 that of Swift seated before his diary, striving to realize 
 all that he had lost. 
 
 Stella died in 1728. The rest of Swift's life was spent 
 in Ireland, chiefly in Dublin. From his youth he had 
 
LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT, 15 
 
 been troubled with fits of giddiness, which, he feared, 
 proceeded from some disease of his brain. One of his 
 near kinsmen had died mad, and he feared that the same 
 dark shadow was overhanging him, and needed but time 
 to descend upon him. He felt his mental powers grow 
 gradually weaker, till at length the dreaded moment 
 came, and he became imbecile. His powerful intellect, 
 once so pregnant with keen satire, refused to act. He 
 shunned the company of his former friends, whom he no 
 longer recognised ; and to fill to the brim his cup of 
 agony, he was partly conscious of the terrible state into 
 which he had fallen. An abscess which formed in his 
 eye caused him horrible toitures ; and when death came, 
 wished for years before, when he stood by the bedside 
 of Stella, and knew that she was gone from him, it was 
 a merciful release. 
 
 Of Swift's works we may here say a little. " The Tale 
 of a Tub "and the "Battle of the Books," both pub- 
 lished in 1704, are among his earliest. The former work 
 is an allegory in which the history of the Romish, Cal- 
 vinistic, and Lutheran Churches are represented under 
 the guise of the adventures of three brothers, Peter, 
 Jack, and Martin. Swift's other great prose narrative is 
 " Gulliver's Travels " (1726). As a writer of pamphlets, 
 he stands in the highest rank, and his diatribe on the 
 "Conduct of the Allies (17 14), and the " Drapier's 
 Ltetters," are, perhaps the best of this class. Of Swift's 
 irony the best examples are his " Argument against 
 Aboljghing Christianity ; " his " Directions to Servants ; " 
 and his " Modest Proposal for preventing the Children 
 of the Poor from becoming a Burden," which was to 
 utilize them as, food ! As a poet Swift never rose to any 
 
16 LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 eminence ; and Dryden's prophecy* as to his failure in 
 this branch of literature came true. His verse is often 
 interesting, however, from a personal point of view, as in 
 the poem of " Cadenus and Vanessa," which gives an 
 insight into his relations with Hester Vanhomrigh. The 
 " Legion Club,"- a satire on the Irish Parliament, and 
 the verses written on the "Death of Dr. Swift," in which 
 he describes the reception by his various friends of the 
 news of his death, are the most interesting of his other 
 poems. 
 
 Swift died in 1745, and was buried by the side of 
 Stella in the Cathedral of St. Patrick. 
 
 * " Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet." 
 
LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 17 
 
 THE 
 
 BOYLE AND BENTLEY CONTROVERSY. 
 
 For the following account of the Boyle and Bentley 
 Controversy, I am chiefly indebted to Dr. Jebb's 
 Bentley (" English Men of Letters " Series). 
 
 In order to understand this literary quarrel, it will be 
 necessary to trace it back to its origin. In 1688, 
 Fontenelle, in a short discourse, expressed doubts con- 
 cerning the, previously unquestioned superiority of the 
 Ancients in Literature and Art. In this he was supported 
 by Perrault and other writers ; but a theory so much at 
 variance with received opinions could not fail to grouse 
 much antagonism, and accordingly Boileau espoused 
 the cause of the Ancients. 
 
 The dispute was carried on with great warmth on both 
 sides, and soon found its way to England. In 1692 Sir 
 William Temple published an " Essay on Ancient and 
 Modern Learning," in which he maintained that the 
 Ancients excelled the Moderns not merely in matters of 
 Literature and Art, but in scientific matters also, and 
 that the latter owed all their knowledge to the former. 
 In support of this assertion, he says of the Ancients : — 
 " The oldest books we have are still in their kind the ' 
 best. The two most ancient that I know of in prose, 
 among those we call profane authors, are ' ^sop's 
 Fables ' and ' Phalaris's Epistles,' both living near the 
 same time, which was that of Cyrus and Pythagoras. As 
 the first has been agreed by all ages since for the 
 greatest master in his kind, and all others of that sort 
 have been but imitations of his original, so I think the 
 Epistles of Phalaris to have raoi'e race, more spirit, more 
 
 B 
 
18 LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 force of wit and genius, than any others I have ever seen, 
 either ancient or modern. I know several learned men 
 (or that usually pass for such, under the name of critics) 
 have not esteemed 'them genuine ; and Politian, with 
 some others, have attributed them to Lucian; but I 
 think he must have little skill in painting that cannot find 
 
 out this to be an original I esteem Lucian 
 
 to have teen no more capable of writing than of acting 
 what Phalaris did. In all one writ you find the scholar 
 or the sophist ; in all the other, the tyrant and the com- 
 mander." 
 
 Commendation from a man of such consideration as 
 Sir William Temple at once aroused great public interest 
 in the Letters of Phalaris, and preparations were made 
 to publish an Edition of the Epistles. The Honourable 
 Charles Boyle, a brother of the Earl of Orrery, and at 
 this time only seventeen years of age, was chosen to edit 
 the work, as he was one of the most promising scholars 
 of his College (Christ Church, Oxford). But though the 
 book was published in his name, he was assisted by 
 several scholars of eminence. 
 
 Now there existed at this time in the Royal Library 
 at St. James's a manuscript of the Epistles of Phalaris. 
 Wishing to consult it, Boyle wrote to his bookseller, Mr. 
 Thomas Bennet, requesting him to get the manuscript 
 collated ; and after delaying some time, Bennet applied 
 to Bentley, who was then the Librarian at St. James's, 
 and who promised to " help Mr. Boyle to the book." 
 
 It appears that Bennet did not apply for the manu- 
 script immediately after Boyle had written to him, and 
 to screen himself, he blamed Bentley for the delay. 
 However, in May, 1694, the manuscript was handed 
 over for collation, Bentley telling Bennet that he would 
 
LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 19 
 
 require it again shortly, as he was going out of town, and 
 could not permit it to remain out of its place in the 
 Library during his absence. Gibson, the collator, had 
 it in his possession for some days (at least five or six). 
 Bentley purposed leaving London for a period of two 
 months on a Monday towards the end of May, and on 
 the Saturday before his departure, he called on Bennet 
 about noon, and asked him for the manuscript. The 
 latter sent to Gibson, who answered that he had not 
 finished the collation. Bennet then asked for the loan 
 of the manuscript until Sunday morning, but Bentley re- 
 fused this request ; giving Gibson permission, however, 
 to retain it until Saturday evening, when it was duly 
 returned. Out of a hundred and forty-eight letters, only 
 forty had been collated. 
 
 Ample time had been allowed to collate all the letters, 
 which task would not have occupied more than sixteen 
 hours, whereas the manuscript had been in the hands ot 
 the collator for at least five days. But Bennet alleged 
 that sufficient time had not been allowed for the colla- 
 tion, and ascribed this to the hostility of Bentley to the 
 Oxford men. Boyle was evidently annoyed, as appears 
 from his Preface to the Epistles of Phalaiis (1695) : — 
 
 " I have procured a collation as far as letter XL. of a 
 manuscript in the Royal Library. The Librarian, with 
 that courtesy which distinguishes him (pro singular! sua 
 humanitate) refused me the further use of it." 
 
 The phrase " pro singulari sua kumanitafe" seems to 
 have attracted the attention of Boyle's partisans ; and i^ 
 the controversy which followed, the " singular humanity 
 of the King's Librarian" was made the subject of many 
 satirical allusions. 
 
 Although Bentley returned to London long before 
 
20 LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 Boyle's book was ready, no further application was 
 made for the use of the manuscript. Before the publi- 
 cation of the volume, Bentley saw an early copy, and at 
 once wrote to Boyle explaining matters, in the belief that 
 his explanation would lead to the omission of the objec- 
 tionable passage. This might have been done without 
 difficulty, as only a few copies of Boyle's book had been 
 printed. Boyle, however, gave Bentley an evasive 
 answer, and the passage was allowed to remain un- 
 altered. 
 
 Bentley did not publicly notice this till 1697, when 
 William Wotton was about to publish a second edition 
 of his " Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning," 
 
 ' which had first appeared in 1694. Bentley had promised 
 to write articles on Phalaris and .^sop, and^ow Wotton 
 claimed the fulfilment of this promise. In the former of 
 these articles, Bentley defended himself against Boyle's 
 accusation ; but not content with this, he proceeded 
 further to write a hostile criticism of Boyle's whole work ; 
 and the partisans of the latter replied by a pamphlet 
 entitled, " Dr. Bentley's Dissertations on the Epistles of 
 Phalaris and the Fables of .^Esop, examined by Charles 
 Boyle, Esq." 
 
 In this Boyle points out that he had never asserted the 
 genuineness of the Letters of Phalaris, which Bentley 
 had asserted to be of a much later date than that of 
 
 ' their reputed author. Boyle's whole book is written 
 with much wit and vivacity, at which we cannot be sur- 
 prised ; for he was aided in its composition by some of 
 the best men of his college, and counted among his 
 helpers Atterbury and Smalridge. It is written in a 
 style of exquisite raillery, and when published was 
 greeted with a storm of applause. Three editions were 
 
LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 21 
 
 printed and sold in rapid succession, and all society 
 rejoiced at the supposed victory of the elegant man of 
 fashion over the rude pedant, never dreaming but that 
 Bentley was silenced for ever. 
 
 Temple soon wrote in praise of Boyle's victory over 
 his opponent, commending the elegance and wit of the 
 former, and reprehending the " foul-mouthed raillery " 
 of " the Doctor and his friends." All Christchurch 
 seems to have contributed at this time to ridiciile 
 Bentley, to whom but few friends remained true in this 
 trial. 
 
 Bentley now prepared his reply, which was published 
 in the end of 1698. He begins by refuting the personal 
 accusations brought against him by the supporters of 
 Boyle. Having dealt with these, he proceeds to prove 
 beyond a shadow of a doubt that the supposed letters 
 of Phalaris are spurious, being full of anachronisms and 
 inconsistencies of the most flagrant kind, towns being 
 mentioned that were not built, and books quoted that 
 were not written till after the time of the real Phalaris. 
 
 " Hallam characterizes the style of the Dissertation as 
 ' rapid, concise, amusing, and superior to Boyle in that 
 which he chiefly had to boast, a sarcastic wit.' It may 
 be questioned how far ' wit,' in its special modern sense, 
 wa&'a distinguishing trait on either side of this contro- 
 versy. The chief weapons of the Boyle alliance were 
 derision and invective. Bentley's sarcasm is always 
 powerful and often keen ; but the finer quality of wit, 
 though seen in some touches, can hardly be said to 
 pervade the dissertation. As to the humour, that is 
 unquestionable. Th^re is, so far, an unconscious 
 element in it, that its effect on the reader is partly due 
 
22 LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 to Bentley's tremendous and unflagging earnestness in 
 heaping up one absurdity upon another."* 
 
 Almost simultaneously with Bentley's " Dissertation,'' 
 there appeared " A short account of Dr. Bentley's 
 Humanity and Justice," accusing Bentley of having 
 plundered some papers left unpublished by Thomas 
 Stanley on his death ; and giving Bennet's account of 
 Bentley's behaviour to Boyle in reference to the Phalaris 
 MS. Shortly afterwards, an anonymous defence of 
 Bentley was published in reply to the " Short Account," 
 and is supposed to have been written by Solomon 
 Whately, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. 
 
 Swift's " Battle of the Books " was commenced in 
 1697 at Sir W, Temple's country seat. Moor Park. It 
 is said to have been suggested by a French satire — 
 " Histoire poetique de la guerre nouvellement declarde 
 entre les Anciens et les Modernes" — ascribed by Scott to 
 Courtray, but since ascertained by Mr. H. M. Craik to 
 be the work of Frangois de Callibres. Swift, however, 
 protests his ignorance of the French work, the following 
 account of which I quote from Mr. Craik's " Life of 
 Swift" :— 
 
 " Starting from Perrault's poem, 'Le Sifecle de Louis 
 le Grand,' which is read before the assembled judges, and 
 becomes the subject of dispute, de Calliferes' book 
 proceeds with the stock machinery of the double peaks 
 of Parnassus, the marshalling of the opposing forces, 
 the watering of the steeds at Hippocrene, the interven- 
 tion of La Renommde, much as Swift introduces Fame. 
 The Ancients have the greater unanimity as to their 
 commander, which Swift, like their other defenders, 
 
 * Professor Jebb's Bentley. \ 
 
LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT. 23 
 
 claimed for them ; and, like de Callibres, Swift uses the 
 simile of auxiliary forces for the modern champions of 
 antiquity. Bat when we have said this, we have exhausted 
 all possible points of comparison. The piece was not 
 only unborrowed ; it was diametrically opposed to 
 de Callibres' poor contribution to the stock dispute, 
 which begins, as it ends, with the commonplaces of 
 critical compromise. The ' Battle of the Books ' 
 strikes an entirely different chord. Its object is satire, 
 not criticism." 
 
 The "Battle of, the Books," though written in 1697, 
 was at first only circulated in private, and was not 
 printed until 1704, when it appeared with the "Tale of 
 a Tub." Swift in writing had probably no real interest 
 in the controversy, but merely wished to please his 
 patron, Temple, who was so ardent a supporter of the 
 Ancients. 
 
 For further particulars as to the Boyle and Bentley 
 controversy, I must refer the reader to Professor Jebb's 
 " Bentley" (Macmillan & Co.), in which there is a 
 detailed account of this celebrated literary quarrel. 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER. 
 
 This discourse, as it is unquestionably of the same 
 author, so it seems to have been written about the same 
 time, with "The Tale of a Tub;" I mean the year 
 1697, when the famous dispute was on foot about 
 ancient and modern learning. The controversy took its 
 rise from an essay of Sir William Temple's upon that : 
 subject ; which was answered by W. Wotton,. B.D.. with 
 an appendix by Dr. Bentley, endeavouring to destroy 
 the credit of .^Esop and Phalaris for authors, whom Sir 
 William Temple had, in the essay before mentioned, 10 
 highly commended. In that appendix the Doctor falls 
 hard upon a new edition of Phalaris, put out by the 
 Honourable Charles Boyle, now Earl of Orrery, to which 
 Mr. Boyle replied at large with great learning and wit ; 
 and the Doctor voluminously rejoined. In this dispute 
 the town highly resented to see a person of Sir William 
 Temple's character and merits roughly used by the two 
 reverend gentlemen aforesaid, and without any manner 
 of provftcation. At length, there appearing no end of 
 the quarrel, our author tells us that the BOOKS in St. 20 
 James's Library, looking upon themselves as parties 
 principally concerned, took up the controversy, and 
 came to a decisive battle ; but the manuscript, by the 
 
26. THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER. 
 
 injury of fortune or weather, being in several places 
 imperfect, we cannot learn to which side the victory 
 fell. 
 
 I must warn the reader to beware of applying to per- 
 sons what is here meant only of books, in the most 
 literal sense. So, when Virgil is mentioned, we are not 
 to understand the person of a famous poet called by 
 that name ; but only cert9,in sheets of paper bound up 
 in leather, containing in print the works of the said 
 10 poet J and so of the rest. 
 
-THE PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Satire is aso rt of glass wherein beholders do generall y 
 discover everybody's face but their own : which is the 
 chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the 
 world, and that so very fevvjre-QjGEfiiidfid-ffiilliJt. But, 
 if it should happen otherwise, the danger is not great ; 
 and I have learned from long experience never to appre- 
 hend mischief from those understandings I have been 
 able to provoke ; for anger and fury, though they add 
 strength to the sinews of the body, yet are found to 
 relax those of the mind, and to render all its efforts' lo 
 feeble and impotent. 
 
 There is a brain that will endure but one scumming ; 
 let the owner gather it with discretion, and manage his 
 little stock with husbandry ; but, of all things, let him 
 beware of bringing it under the lash of his betters, 
 because that will make it all bubble up into imper- 
 tinence, and he will find no new supply. / Wit withou t 
 knowledge beirig a sort of cream, which gathers in a 
 night to the top, and by a skilful hand may be soon 
 whipped into froth- but once scummed away, what 
 appears underneath will be fit for nothing but to be 
 thrown to the hogs. A 
 
A FULL AND TRUE ACCOUNT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 3Sattle fougijt last Jrilias 
 
 BETWEEN THE 
 
 AiNCIENT AND THE MODERN BOOKS 
 
 IN ST. James's library. 
 
 "VT THOEVER examines, with due circumspection, 
 ' ' into the annual records of time, will find it re- 
 marked that War is the child of Pride, and Pride the ''' 
 daughter of Riches — the former of which assertions may • 
 be soon granted, but one cannot so easily subscribe to 
 the latter ; for Pride is nearly related to Beggary and 
 Want, either by father or mother, and sometimes by 
 both : and, to speak naturally, it very seldom happens 
 among men to fall out when all have enough ; invasions 
 usually travelling from north to south, that is to say, lo 
 from poverty to plenty. The most ancient and natural 
 grounds of quarrels are lust and avarice ; which, though 
 we may allow to be brethren, or collateral branches of 
 pride, are certainly the issues of want. For to speak in 
 the phrase of writers upon politics, we may observe in 
 the reoublic of do gs, which in its original^ seems to be an 
 institution of the many, that the whole state is ever in 
 the profoundest peace after a full meal ; and that civil 
 broils arise among them when it happens for one great 
 
80 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 bone to be seized on by some leading dog, who either 
 divides it among the few, and then it falls to an oligarchy, 
 or keeps it to himself, and then it runs up to a tyranny. 
 The same reasoning also holds place among them in 
 those dissensions we behold upon a turgescency in any 
 of their females. For the right of possession lying in 
 common (it being impossible to establish a property in 
 so delicate a case), jealousies and suspicions do so 
 'abound, that the whole commonwealth of that street is 
 
 10 reduced to a manifest state of war, of every citizen 
 against every citizen, till some one of more courage, 
 conduct, or fortune than the rest seizes and enjoys the 
 prize : upon which naturally arises plenty of heartburn- 
 ing, and envy, and snarling against the happy dog. Again, 
 if we look upon any of these republics engaged in a 
 foreign war, either of invasion or defence, we shall find 
 the same reasoning will serve as to the grounds and 
 occasions of each ; and that poverty or want, in some 
 degree or other (whether real or in opinion, which 
 
 20 makes no alteration in the case), has a great share, as 
 well as pride, on the part of the aggressor. 
 
 Now whoever will please to take this sclieme, and 
 either reduce or adapt it to an intellectual state or 
 commonwealth of learning, will soon discover the first 
 ground of disagreement between the two great parties 
 at this time in arms, and may forhi just conclusions 
 upon the merits of either cause". But the issue or events 
 of this war are not so easy to conjecture at ; for the 
 present quarrel is so inflamed by the warm heads of 
 
 30 either faction, and the pretensions somewhere or other 
 so exorbitant, as not to admit the least overtures of ac- 
 commodation. This quarrel first began, as I have 
 heard it affirmed by an old dweller in the neighbour- 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 31 
 
 hood, about a small spot of ground, lying and being 
 upon one of the two tops of the hill Parnassus ; the 
 highest and largest of which had, it seem% been time 
 out of mind in quiet possession of certain tenants, 
 called the Ancients ; and the other was held by the 
 Moderns. But these disliking their present station, 
 sent certain ambassadors to the Ancients, complain- 
 ing of a great nuisance] how the height of that part 
 of Parnassus quite spoiled the prospect of their^, 
 especially towards the east ; and therefore, to avoid a I'o 
 war, offered them the choice of this alternative, either 
 that the Ancients would please to remove themselves 
 and their effects down to the lower summity, which the 
 Moderns would graciously surrender to them, and ad- 
 vance into their place ; or else the said Ancients will 
 give leave to the Moderns to come with shovels' and 
 mattocks, and level the said hill as low as they shall 
 think it convenient. To which the Ancients made 
 answer, how little they expected such a message as this 
 from a colony whom they had admitted, out of their 20 - 
 own free grace, to so near a neighbourhood. That, as 
 to their own seat, they were aborigines of it, and there- 
 fore to talk with them of a removal or surrender Was a 
 " language they did not understand. That if the height 
 of the hill on their side shortened the prospect of the 
 Moderns, it was a disadvantage they could not help ; 
 but desired them to consider whether that injury (if it be 
 any) were not largely recompensed by the shade and 
 shelter it afforded them. That as to the levelling or 
 digging down, it was either folly or ignorance to propose 30 
 it if they did or did Hot know how that side of the hill 
 was an entire rock, which would break their tools and 
 hearts, without any damage to itself. That they would 
 
32 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 [therefore advise the Moderns rather to raise their own 
 side of the hill than dream of pulling down that of the 
 Ancients ; to the former of which they would not only- 
 give licence, but also largely contribute. All this was 
 rejected by the Moderns with much indignation, who 
 still insisted upon one of the two expedients ; and so this 
 difference broke out into a long and obstinate war, main- 
 tained on the one part by resolution, and by the courage 
 of certain leaders and allies ; but, on the other, by the 
 
 10 greatness of their number, upon all defeats affording 
 continual recruits. In this quarrel whole rivulets of ink 
 have been exhausted, and the virulence of both parties 
 enormously augmented. Now, it must be here under- 
 stood, that ink is the great missive weapon in all battles 
 of the learned, which, conveyed through a sort of engine 
 called a quill, infinite numbers of these are darted at the 
 enemy by the valiant on each side, with equal skill and 
 violence, as if it were an engagement of porcupines. 
 This malignant liquor was compounded, by the engineer 
 
 20 who invented it, of two ingredients, which are gall and 
 copperas ; by its bitterness and venom to suit in some 
 degree, as well as to foment, the genius of the combat- 
 ants. And as the Grecians, after an engagement, when 
 they could not agree about the victory, were wont to set 
 up trophies on both sides, the beaten party being con- 
 tent to be at the same expense, to keep itself in counte- 
 nance (a laudable and ancient custom, happily revived 
 of late in the art of war), so the learned, after, a sharp 
 and bloody dispute, do, on both sides, hang out their 
 
 30 trophies too, whichever comes by the worst These 
 trophies have largely inscribed on them the merits of the 
 cause; a full impartial account of such a battle, and 
 how the victory fell clearly to the party that set them 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 83 
 
 Tip. They are known to the world under several names; 
 as disputes, arguments, rejoinders, brief considerations, 
 answers, replies, remarks, reflections, objections, con- 
 futations. For a very few days they are fixed up all ii^ 
 public places, either by themselves or their representa^ 
 tives, for passengers to gaze at ; whence the chiefest and 
 largest are removed to certain magazines they call 
 libraries, there to remain in a quarter purposely assigne4 
 them, and thenceforth begin to be called books of con- 
 troversy, lo 
 ■^ In these books is wonderfully instilled and preserved 
 the spirit of each warrior while he is alive ; and after his 
 death his soul transmigrates thither to inform them. 
 This, at least, is the more common opinion ; but I be- 
 lieve it is with libraries as with other coemeteries, where 
 some philosophers affirm that a certain spirit, which 
 they call brutum hominis, hovers over' the monument, 
 till the body is corrupted and turns to dust or to worms, 
 but then vanishes or dissolves ; so, we may say, a rest- 
 less spirit haunts over every book, till dust or worms ao 
 have seized upon it — which to some may happen in a 
 few days, but to others later — and therefore, books of 
 controversy being, of all others, haunted by the most 
 disorderly spirits, have always been confined in a 
 separate lodge from the rest, and for fear of a mutual 
 violence against each other, it was thought prudent by 
 our ancestors to bind them to the peace with strong 
 iron chains. Of which invention the original occasion 
 was this : When the works of Scotus first came outj 
 they were carried to a certain library, and had lodgings 30 
 appointed thern ; but this author was no sooner settled 
 than he went to visit his master Aristotle, and there both 
 concerted together to seize Plato by main force, and 
 
 c 
 
84 -BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 furn him out from his ancient station among the divinesj 
 where he had peaceably dwelt near eight hundred years. 
 The attempt succeeded, and the two usurpers have 
 reigned ever since in his stead ; but, to maintain quiet 
 for the future, it was decreed that all polemics of the 
 larger size should be held fast with a chain. 
 
 By this expedient, the public peace of libraries might 
 certainly have been preserved if a new species of con- 
 troversial books had not arisen of late years, instinct 
 
 lo with a more malignant spirit, from the war above men- 
 tioned between the learned about the higher summit of 
 Parnassus. 
 
 When these books were first admitted into the public 
 libraries I remember to have said, upon occasion, to 
 several persons concerned, how I was sure they would 
 create broils wherever they came, unless a world of care 
 were taken ; and therefore I advised that the champions 
 of each side should be coupled together, or otherwise 
 mixed, that, like the blending of contrary poisons, their 
 
 20 malignity might be employed among themselves. And 
 it seems I was neither an ill prophet nor an ill coun- 
 sellor ; for it was nothing else but the neglect of this 
 I caution which gave occasion to the terrible fight that 
 happened on Friday last between the Ancient and 
 Modern Books in the King's library. Now, because 
 the talk of this battle is so fresh in everybody's mouth, 
 and the expectation of the town so great to be informed 
 in the particulars, I, being possessed of all qualifica- 
 tions requisite in an historian, and retained by neither 
 
 ■ ,0 party, have resolved to comply with the urgent impor- 
 tunity of my friends, by writing down a full impartial 
 account thereof. 
 The guardian of the regal library, a person of great 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS, 85 
 
 valour, but chiefl v-reoawned for^hisJumantty. had been 
 a fierce champion for the Moderns, and, in an engage- 
 ment upon Parnassus, had vowed with his own hands 
 to knock down two of the ancient chiefs who guarded a 
 small pass on the superior rock, but, endeavouring to 
 climb up, was cruelly obstructed by his own unhappy 
 weight and tendency towards his centre, a quality to 
 which those of the Modern party are extremely subject ; 
 for, being light-headed, they have, in speculation, a 
 wonderful agility, and conceive nothing too high for i6 
 them to mount, but, in reducing to practice, discover a 
 mighty pressure about their posteriors and their heels. 
 Having thus failed in bis design, the disappointed 
 champion bore a cruel rancour to the Ancients, which 
 he resolved to gratify by showing all marks of his favour 
 to the books of their adversaries, and lodging them in 
 the fairest apartments ; wben, at the same time, what- 
 ever book had the boldness to own itself for an advocate 
 of the Ancients was buried alive in some obscure corner, 
 and threatened, upon the least displeasure, to be turned 20 
 out of doors. Besides, it so happened that about this 
 time there was a strange confusion of place among all 
 the books in the library, for which several reasons were 
 assigned. Some imputed it to a great heap of learned 
 dust, which a perverse wind blew off from a shelf of 
 Modems into the keeper's eyes. Others affirmed he 
 had a humour to pick the worms out of the schoolmen, 
 and swallowed them fresh and fasting, whereof some fell 
 upon his spleen, and some climbed up into his head, to 
 the great perturbation of both. .And lastly, others main- 30 
 tained that, by walking much in the dark about the 
 library, he had quite lost the situation of it out of his 
 head ; and therefore, in replacing his books, he was apt 
 
§6: BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 to mistake and clap Descartes next to Aristotle ; pooc 
 Plato had got between Hobbes and the Seven Wise 
 l^asters, and Virgil was hemmed in with Dryden on 
 one side and Wither on the other. 
 
 Meanwhile, those books that were advocates for the 
 Moderns, chose out one from among them to make a 
 progress through the whole library, examine the number 
 and strength of their party, and concert their affairs. 
 This messenger performed all things very industriously, 
 
 lo and brought back with him a list of their forces, in all, 
 five thousand, consisting chiefly of light-horse, heavy- 
 armed foot, and mercenaries ; whereof the foot were in 
 general but sorrily armed and worse clad ; their horses 
 large, but extremely out of case and heart ; however, 
 some few, by trading among the Ancients, had furnished 
 themselves tolerably enough. 
 
 While things were in this ferment, discord grew ex- 
 tremely high ; hot words passed on both sides, and ill 
 blood was plentifully bred. Here a solitary Ancient 
 
 ?o squeezed up among a whole shelf of Moderns, oifered 
 fairly to dispute the case, and to prove by manifest rea- ' 
 son that the priority was due to them from long posses- 
 sion, and in regard of their prudence, antiquity, and, 
 above all, their great merits toward the Moderns. But 
 these denied the premises, and seemed very much to 
 ■wonder how the Anciejnts could pretend to insist upon 
 their antiquity, when it was so plain (if they went to 
 that) that the Moderns were much the more ancient of 
 tjie two. As for any obligations they owed to the Ancients, 
 
 30 they renounced them all. "It is true," said they, 
 " we are informed some few of our party have been so 
 mean to borrow their subsistence from you, but the rest, 
 infinitely the greater number (and especially we. French 
 

 ■BATtLE Of THE BOOKS. B? 
 
 knd English), were so far from stooping to so base an 
 example, that there never passed, till this very hour, six 
 words between us. For our horses were of our own 
 breeding, our arms of our own forcing, and our clothes 
 of our own cutting out and sewing." Plato was by 
 chance up on the next shelf, and observing those that 
 ispoke to be in the ragged plight mentioned a while ago, 
 their jades lean and foundered, their weapons of rotten 
 Wood, their armour rusty, and nothing but rags under'' 
 neath, he laughed loud, and in his pleasant way swore, i6 
 by , he believed them. 
 
 Now, the Moderns had not proceeded in their late 
 ■negotiation with secrecy enough to escape the notice of 
 the enemy. For those advocates who had begun the 
 quarrel, by setting first on foot the dispute of prece- \ 
 dency, talked so loud of coming to a battle that Sir 1 
 William Temple happened to overhear them, and gave v 
 immediate intelligence to the Ancients, who thereupon 
 drew up their scattered troops together, resolving to 
 act upon the defensive; upon which, several of the 20 
 Moderns fled over to their party, and among the rest 
 Temple himself. This Temple, having been educated 
 and long conversed among the Ancients, was, of all the 
 Moderns, their greatest favourite, and became their 
 greatest champion. 
 
 Things were at this crisis when a material accident 
 •fell out. For upon the highest corner of a large window, 
 there dwelt a certain spider, swollen up to the first 
 ■magnitifde by the destruction of infinite numbers of flies, 
 whose spoils lay scattered before the gates of his palace, 36 
 like human bones before the cave of some giant. The I . 
 ^avenues to his castle were guarded with turnpikes and / / 
 palisidoes, all after the modern way of fortification; \ 
 
S8 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 After you had passed several courts, you came to the 
 centre, wherein you might behold the constable himself 
 in his own lodgings, which had windows fronting to each 
 avenue, and ports to sally out upon all occasions of 
 prey cm- defence. ' In this mansion he had for some time 
 dwelt in peace and plenty, without danger to his person 
 by swallows from above, or to his palace by brooms 
 from below; when it was the pleasure of fortune to con- 
 duct thither a wandering bee, to whose curiosity a broken 
 
 10 pane in the glass had discovered itself, and in he went, 
 where, expatiating a while, he at last happened to alight 
 iipon one of the outward walls of the sjMder's citadel ; 
 which, yielding to the unequal weight, sunk down to the 
 very foundation. Thrice he endeavoured to force his 
 passage, and thrice the centre shook. The ' spider 
 within, feeling the terrible convulsion, supposed at 
 first that nature was approaching to her final dissolu- 
 tion, or else that Beelzebub, with all his legions, was 
 come to revenge the death of many thousands of his 
 
 20 subjects whom his enemy had slain and devoured. 
 However, he at length valiantly resolved to issue forth 
 and meet his fate. Meanwhile the bee had acquitted 
 himself of his toils, and, jxjsted securely at some distance, 
 was employed in cleansing his wings, and disengaging 
 them from the ragged remnants of the cobweb. By this 
 time the spider was adventured out, when, beholding 
 the chasms, the ruins, and dilapidations of his fortress, 
 he was very near at his wits' end ; he stormed and swore 
 like a madman, and swelled till he was ready to burst. 
 
 30 At length, casting his eye upon the bee, and wisely 
 gathering causes from events (for they knew each other 
 by sight), "A plague split you," said he ; " is it you, with 
 a vengeance, that have made this litter here ; could 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 39. 
 
 not you look before you, and be d — d ? Do you think 
 I have nothing el-se to do (in the devil's name) but to 
 mend and repair after you?" "Good words, friend," 
 said the bee, having now pruned himself, and being dis- 
 posed to droll : " I'll give you my hand and word to. 
 come near your kennel no more ; I was never in such 
 a confounded pickle since I was born." " Sirrah," re- 
 plied the, spider, " if it were not for breaking an old 
 custom in our family, never to stir abroad against an 
 enemy, I should come and teach you manners." " I ro 
 pray have patience," said the bee, "or you'll spend your 
 substance, and, for aught I see, you may stand in need 
 of it all towards the repair of your house. " Rogue, 
 rogue," replied the spider, " yet methinks you should 
 have more respect to a person whom all the world allows 
 to be so much your betters." " By my troth," said the 
 bee, "the comparison will amount to a very good jest, 
 and you will do me a favour to let me know the reasons 
 that all the world is pleased to use in so hopeful a dis- 
 pute." At this the spider, having swelled himself into 20 
 the size and posture of a disputant, began his argument 
 in the true spirit of controversy, with resolution to be 
 heartily scurrilous and angry, to urge on his own reasons 
 without the least regard to the answers or objections 
 of his opposite, and fully predetermined in his mind 
 against all convictions. 
 
 " Not to disparage myself," said he, " by the compari- 
 ■ son with such a rascal, what art thou but a \'agabond 
 without house or home, without stock or inheritance ? 
 born to no possession of your own, but a pair of wings 30 
 and a drone-pipe. Your livelihood is a universal plunder 
 upon nature ; a freebooter over fields and gardens; 
 and, for the sake of stealing, will rob a nettle as easily 
 
4d BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 as a violet. Whereas I am a domestic animal, furnished 
 with a native stock within myself. This large castle 
 . (to show my improvements in the mathematics) is all 
 built with my own hands, and the materials extracted 
 altogether out of my own person." 
 
 " I am glad," answered the bee, " to hear you grant 
 at least that I am come honestly by my wings and my 
 voice ; for then, it seems, I am obliged to Heaven 
 alone for my flights and my music ; and Providence 
 
 io would never have bestowed on me two such gifts with- 
 out designing them for the noblest ends. I visit, indeed, 
 all the flowers and blossoms of the field and garden, 
 but whatever I collect thence enriches myself without 
 the least injury to their beauty, their smell, or their 
 taste. Now, for you and your skill in architecture and 
 other mathematics, I have little to say : in that building 
 of yours there might, for aught I know, have been 
 labour and method enough ; but, by woeful experience 
 for us both, it is too plain the materials are naught ; and 
 
 20 I hope you will henceforth take warning, and consider 
 duration and matter, as well as method and art. You 
 boast, indeed, of being obliged to no other creature, but 
 of drawing and spinning out all from yourself; that is 
 to say, if we may judge of the liquor in the vessel by 
 what issues out, you possess a good plentiful store of 
 dirt and poison in your breast ; and, though I would by 
 no means lessen or disparage your genuine stock of 
 either, yet I doubt you are somewhat obliged, for an 
 increase of both, to a little foreign assistance. Your 
 
 30 inherent portion of dirt does not fail of acquisitions, by 
 
 sweepings exhaled from below ; and one insect furnishes 
 
 ' you with a share of poison to destroy another. So that, 
 
 •in short, the question comes all to this : whether is the 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS; 41 
 
 nobler being of the two, that which, by a lazy contem- 
 plation of four inches round, by an overweening pride^" 
 feeding, and engendering on. itself, turns all into excre- 
 ment and venom, producing nothing at all but flybane 
 and a cobweb ; or that which, by a universal range, with 
 long search, much study, true judgment, and distinc- 
 tion of things, brings home honey and wax." 
 
 This dispute was managed with sucH eagerness, 
 clamour, and warmth, that the two parties of books, in 
 arms below, stood silent a while, waiting in suspense lo 
 what would be the issue ; which was not long unde- 
 termined : for the bee, grown impatient at so much 
 loss of time, fled straight away to a bed of roses, with- 
 out looking for a reply, and left the spider, like an 
 orator, collected- in himself, and just prepared to burst 
 out. 
 
 It happened upon this emergency that ^sop broke ■ 
 silence first. He had been of late 'most barbarously '''''" 
 treated by a strange_effJ£CL of the, regen^ humanity, V _::„•, 
 who had torn off his title-page, sorely defaced one half 20 
 of his leaves, and chained him fast among a shelf of 
 Moderns. Where, soon discovering how high the 
 quarrel was likely to proceed, he tried all his arts, and 
 turned himself to a thousand forms. At length, in the 
 _ borrowed shape of an as.s,jthe regent mistook him for 
 a Mooern ; by which means he had time and oppor- 
 tunity to escape to the- Ancients, just when the spider 
 and the bee were entering into their contest ; to which 
 he gave his attention with a world of pleasure, and, 
 when it was ended, swore in the loudest key that in all 30 
 his life he had never known two cases so parallel and 
 .adapt to each other as that in the window and this 
 upon the shelves. "The disputants," said he, ^"have 
 
42 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 admirably managed the dispute between them, have 
 taken in the full strength of all that is to be said on 
 both sides, and exhausted the substance of every argu- 
 ment /w and con. It is but to adjust the reasonings oi 
 both to the present quarrel, then to compare and apply 
 the labours and fruits of each, as the bee has learnedly 
 deduced them, and we shall find the conclusion fall 
 plain and close upon the Modems and us. For pray, 
 gentlemen, was ever anything so modem as the spider 
 
 10 in his air, his turns, and his paradoxes? he argues in 
 the behalf of you, his brethren, and himself, with many 
 \boastings of his native stock and great genius ; that he 
 spins and spits wholly from himself, and scorns to own 
 any obligation or assistance from without. Then he 
 displays to you his great skill in architecture and im- 
 provement in the mathematics. To all this the bee, as 
 an advocate retained by us, the Ancients, thinks fit to 
 answer, that, if one may judge of the great genius or in- 
 ventions of the Moderns by what they have produced, 
 
 20 you will hardly have countenance to bear you out in 
 boasting of either. Erect your schemes with as much 
 method and skill as you please ; yet, if the materials be 
 nothing but dirt, spun out of your own entrails (the guts 
 of modern brains), the edifice will conclude at last in a 
 ■Cobweb; the duration of which, like that of other 
 spiders' webs, may be imputed to their being forgotten, 
 or neglected, or hid in a corner. For anything else of 
 genuine that the Moderns may pretend to, I cannot 
 (recollect; unless it be a large vein of wrangling and 
 
 3o| satire, much of a nature and substance with the spiders' 
 poison ; which, however they pretend to spit wholly out 
 of themselves, is improved by the same arts, by feeding 
 upon the insects and vermin of the age. As for u^, tjie 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 43 
 
 iAncients, we are content, with the bee, to pretend to] '^' 
 nothing of our own beyond our wings and our voice : I '^ 
 that is to say, our flights and our language. For the 1*^^ 
 rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labour ' 
 and search, and ranging through every corner of 
 nature ; the difference is, that, instead of dirt and 
 poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with 
 honey and wax ; thus furnishing mankind with the two i 
 noblest of things, which are sweetness and light." I 
 
 It is wonderful to conceive the tumult arisen among x\> 
 the books upon the close of this long descant of ^sop ; 
 both parties took the hint, and heightened their animo- 
 sities so on a sudden, that they resolved it should, come 
 to a battle> Immediately the two main bodies with- 
 drew, under their several ensigns, to the farther part of 
 the library, and there entered into cabals and consults 
 upon the present emergency. The Moderns were in 
 very warm debates upon the choice of their leaders ; and 
 nothing less than the fear impending from their enemies 
 could have kept them from mutinies upon this occasion. 20 
 The difference was greatest among the horse, where 
 every private trooper pretended to the chief command, 
 from Tasso and Milton to Dryden and Withers. The 
 light-horse were commanded by Cowley and Despreaux. ..-'- 
 There came the bowmen under their valiant leader?, 
 Descartes, Gassendi, and Hobbes ; whose strength was ' 
 such that they could shoot their arrows beyond the 
 atmosphere, never to fall down again, but turn, like that 
 of Evander, into meteors ; or, like the cannon-ball, into ( 
 stars. Paracelsus brought a squadron of stinkpot-flingers 130 
 frotn,the snowy mountains of Rhsetia. There came a 
 vast body of dragoons, of different nations, under the 
 leading of Harvey, their great aga : part armed with 
 
44 Battle of the books: 
 
 Scythes, the weapons of death ; part with lances and 
 long knives, all steeped in poison ; part shot bullets of 
 a most malignant nature, and used white powder, which 
 infallibly killed without report. There came several 
 bodies of heavy-armed ' foot, all mercenaries, under the 
 ensigns of Guicciardini, Davila, Polydore Vergil, 
 Buchanan, Mariana, Camden, and others. The engi- 
 neers were commanded by Regiomontanus and WilkinS. 
 The rest was a confused multitude, led by Scotus, 
 lo Aquinas, and Bellarmine ; of mighty bulk and stature, 
 but without either arms, courage, or discipline. In the 
 last place came infinite swarms of calones, a disorderly 
 rout led by L'Estrange ; rogues and ragamuffins, that 
 follow the camp for nothing but the plunder ; all without 
 coats to cover them. 
 •^ The army of the Ancients was much fewer in number ; 
 J^^omer led the horse, and Pindar the light-horse ; Euclid 
 ^/^Avas chief engineer ; Plato and Aristotle commanded 
 ,rff^he bowmen ; Herodotus and Livy the foot ; Hippo- 
 L«fe.icrates, the dragoons ; the allies, led by Vossius and 
 " ^sfy/Temple, brought up the rear. 
 / . All things violently tending to a decisive battle, 
 Fame, who much frequented, and had a large apartment 
 formerly assigned her in the regal library, fled up straight 
 to Jupiter, to whom she delivered a faithful account of 
 all that passed between the two parties below; for 
 among the gods she always tells truth. Jove, in great 
 concern, convokes a council in the Milky Way. The 
 senate assembled, he declares the occasion of convening 
 30 them j a bloody battle just impendent between two 
 mighty armies of ancient and modem creatures, called 
 books, wherein the celestial interest was but too deeply 
 concerned. Momus, the patron of the Moderns, made 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS, 45 
 
 an excellent speech in their favour, which was answered 
 by Pallas, the protectress of the Ancients. The assembly 
 was divided in their affections; when Jupiter com-' 
 manded the Book of Fate to be laid before him. 
 Immediately were brought by Mercury three large 
 volumes in folio, C9ntaining memoirs of all things past, 
 present, and to come. The clasps were of silver double 
 gilt, the covers of cel_estial turkey leather, and the paper 
 such as here on e arth might pass almost for vellum, 
 Jupiter, haying silently read the decree, would commu- lo 
 nicate the import to none, but presently shut up the 
 book. 
 
 Without the doors of this assembly there attended a 
 vast number of light, nimble gods, menial servants to 
 Jupiter; these are his ministering instruments in all 
 affairs below. They travel in a caravan, more or less 
 together, and are fastened to each other like a link of 
 galley-slaves, by a light chain, _ which passes from them 
 to Jupiter's great toe ; and yet in receiving or delivering 
 a message, they may never approach above the lowest 20 
 step of his throne, where he and they whisper to each 
 other through a large hollow trunk. These deities are 
 called by mortal men accidents or events ; but the gods 
 call them second causes. Jupiter having delivered his 
 message to a certain number of these divinities, they 
 flew immegli^tely down to the pinnacle of the regaj, 
 library, and consulting a few minutes, entered unseeri, 
 and disposed the parties according to their orders. 
 
 Meanwhile Momus, fearing the worst, and calling to 
 mind an ancient prophecy which bore no very good face 30 
 to his children the Moderns, bent his flight to the regioji 
 of a malignant deity called Criticism, She dwelt on the 
 top of a snowy mountain in Nova Zembla ; there Momus 
 
46 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 found her extended in her den, upon the spoils of num- 
 berless volumes, half devoured. At her right hand sat 
 I Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age ; at 
 ' her left Pride, her mother, dressing her up in the scraps 
 of paper herself had torn. There was Opinion, her 
 sister, light of foot, hood-winked, and headstrong, yet 
 ^ giddy and perpetually turning. About her played her 
 children, Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, 
 Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-manners. The god- 
 'lo dess herself had claws like a cat; her head, and ears, 
 and voice resembled those of an ass ; her teeth fallen 
 ^ out before, her eyes turned inward, as if she looked only 
 upon herself; her diet was the overflowing of her own 
 gall ; her spleen was so large as to stand prominent, like 
 a dug of the first rate ; nor wanted excrescences in form 
 of teats, at which a crew of ugly monsters were greedily 
 sucking ; and, what is wonderful to conceive, the bulk 
 of spleen increased faster than the sucking could di- 
 minish it. "Goddess," said Momus, " can you sit idly 
 20 here while our devout worshippers^ the Moderns, are 
 this minute entering into a cruel battle, and perhaps 
 now lying under the swords of their enemies ? who then 
 hereafter will ever sacrifice or build altars to our di- 
 vinities? Haste, therefore, to the British Isle, and, if 
 possible, prevent their destruction ; while I make fac- 
 tions among the gods, and gain them over to our 
 party." 
 
 Momus, having thus delivered himself, stayed not for 
 an answer, but left the goddess to her own resentment. 
 30 Up she rose in a rage, and, as it is the form on such 
 4 (Jccasions, began a soliloquy ; " It is I " (said she) " who 
 \°M give wisdom to infants and idiots ; by me children grow 
 ' / wiser than their parents, by me beaux become poli- 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 47 
 
 ticians, and schoolboys judges of philosophy ; by me 
 sophisters debate and conclude upon the depths of 
 knowledge ; and coflfee-house wits, instinct by me, can 
 correct an author's style, and display his minutest 
 errors, without understanding a syllable of his matter or 
 his language ; by me striplings spend their judgment, as 
 they do their estate, before it comes into their hands. 
 It is I who' have deposed wit and knowledge from their \ 
 empire over poetry, and advanced myself in their stead. \ 
 And shall a few upstart Ancients dare to oppose me? lo 
 But come, my aged parent, and you, ray children dear, 
 and thou, my beauteous sister; let us ascend my 
 chariot, and haste to assist our devout MpAej^fiWho / 
 are now sacrificing to us a hfecatornb,''^Sl perceive by 
 that grateful smell which from thence reaches my^ 
 nostrils." f 
 
 The goddess and her train, having mounted the 
 chariot, which was drawn by tame geese, flew over ^-' 
 infinite regions, shedding her influence in due places, 
 till at length she arrived at her beloved island of 20 
 Britain; but in hovering over its metropolis, what 
 blessings did she not let fall upon her seminaries of 
 Gresham and Covent-garden ! and now she reached the 
 fatal plain of St. James's library, at what time the two 
 armies were upon the point to engage ; where, entering 
 with all her caravan unseen, and landing upon a case ^' 
 of shelves, now desert, but once inhabited by a colony 
 of virtuosos, she stayed awhile to observe the posture of 
 both armies. 
 
 But here the tender cares of a mother began to fill 30 
 her thoughts and move in her breast : for at the head of . 
 a troop of Modern bowmen she cast her eyes upon her 
 son Wotton, to whom the fates had assigned a very 
 
48 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS^ 
 
 short thread. Wotton, a young hero, whom an unknown 
 father of mortal race begot by stolen, embraces with this 
 goddess. He was the darling of his mother above all 
 her children, and she resolved to go and comfort him. 
 But first, according to the good old custom of deities, 
 she cast about tochange Jierjsbage, for fearthe divinity 
 of her countenance might dazzle his mortal sight and 
 overcharge the rest of his senses. She therefore 
 gathered up her person into an ocjtavo compass : her 
 
 IP body grew white and arid, and split in pieces with dry- 
 ness; the thick turned into pasteboard, and the thin 
 into paper i upon which her parents and children artfully 
 strewed a black juice, or decoction of gall and soot, in 
 form of letters : her head, and voice, and spleen kept 
 their primitive form ; and that which before was a cover 
 of skin did still continue so. In this guise she marched 
 on towards the Modems, undistinguishable in shape and 
 dress from the divine Bentley, Wotton's dearest friend. 
 " Brave Wotton," said the goddess, " why do our 
 
 20 troops stand idle here, to spend their present vigour and 
 opportunity of the day ? away, let us haste to the 
 generals, and advise to give the onset immediately." 
 Having spoke thus, she took the ugliest of her monsters, 
 full glutted from her spleen, and flung it invisibly into 
 his mouth, which, flying straight up into his head, 
 squeezed out his eye-balls, gave him a distorted look, 
 and half overturned his brain. Then she privately 
 ordered two of her beloved children, Dulness and IlL- 
 manners, closely to attend his person in all. encounters. 
 
 30 Having thus accoutred him, she vanished in a mist, and 
 the hero perceived it was the goddess his mother. 
 
 The destined hour of fate being now arrived, the 
 fight began; whereof,, before I dare adventure. to make 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 49 
 
 a particular description, I must, after the example of 
 other authors, petition for a hundred tongues, and 
 mouths, and hands, and pens, which would all be too 
 little to perform so immense a work. Say, goddess, 
 that presidest over history, who it was that first ad- 
 vanced in the field of battle ! Paracelsus, at the head 
 of his dragoons, observing Galen in the adverse wing, 
 darted his javelin with a mighty force, which the brave 
 Ancient received upon his shield, the point breaking in 
 the second fold .... Hie pauca Jlo 
 
 . desunt • 
 They bore the wounded aga on their shields to his 
 chariot ...... 
 
 Desunt ...... 
 
 nonnuUa . ..... 
 
 Then Aristotle, observing Bacon advance with a 
 furious mien, drew his bow to the head, and let fly his 
 arrow, which missed the valiant Modern, and went 
 whizzing over his head ; but Descartes it hit ; the 
 steel point quickly found a defect in his head-piece ; it 20 
 piei£edJh£jeather^d_the_ pasteboard, and went in at ^ 
 his right eye. The torture of the pain whirled the 
 valiant bow-man round till death, like a star of 
 superior influence, drew him into his own vortex 
 Ingens hiatus ...... 
 
 hie in MS. ...... 
 
 , . when Homer appeared at the head of '5-tJ 
 
 the cavalry, mounted_on3^iiliiQU5, horse, with difficulty ^^ 
 managed by the rider himself, but which no other '-"^ 
 mortal durst approach; he rode among the enemy's 30 
 ranks, and bore down all before him. Say, goddess, 
 whom he slew first and whom he slew last ! First, 
 Gondibert advanced against him, clad in heavy armour, 
 
50 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 and mounted on a staid sober gelding, not so famed for 
 his speed as his docility in kneeling whenever his rider 
 would mount or alight. He had made a vow to Pallas 
 that he would never leave the field till he had spoiled 
 Homer of his armour : madman, who had never once 
 seen the wearer, nor understood his strength ! Him 
 Homer overthrew, horse and man, to the ground, there 
 to be trampled and choked in the dirt. Then with a 
 long spear he slew Denham, a stout Modern, who from 
 
 10 his father's side derived his lineage from Apollo, but his 
 mother was of mortal race. He fell, and bit the earth. 
 The celestial part Apoljo took, and made it a star ; but 
 the terrestrial lay wallowing upon the ground. Then 
 Homer slew Sam Wesley with a kick of his horse's 
 heel ; he took Perrault by mighty force out of his 
 saddle, then hurled him at Fontenelle, with the same 
 blow dashing out both their brains. 
 
 On the left wing of the horse Virgil appeared, in 
 shining armour, completely fitted to his body ; he was 
 
 20 mounted on a dapple-grey steed, the slowness of whose 
 pace was an effect of the highest mettle and vigour. He 
 cast his eye on the adverse wing, with a desire to find 
 an object worthy of his valour, when behold, upon a 
 sorrel gelding of a monstrous size appeared a foe, issuing 
 from among the thickest of the enemy's squadrons ; but 
 his speed was less than his noise ; for his horse, old and 
 lean, spent the dregs of his strength in a high trot, which, 
 though it made slow advances, yet caused a loud clashing 
 of his armour, terrible to hear. The two cavaliers had 
 
 30 now approached within the throw of a lance, when the 
 stranger desired a parley, and, lifting up the vizor of his 
 helmet, a face hardly appeared from within which, after 
 a pause, was known for that of the renowned Dryden. 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 51 
 
 The brave Ancient suddenly started, as one possessed 
 with surprise and disappointment together ; for the 
 helmet was nine times too large for the head, which 
 appeared situate far in the hinder part, even like the lady / 
 in a lobster, or like a mouse under a canopy of state, or ^ 
 like a shrivelled beau from within the penthouse of a '' 
 modern periwig ; and the voice was suited to the visage, 
 sounding weak and remote. Dryden, in a long 
 harangue, soothed up the good Ancient; called him 
 father, and, by a large deduction of genealogies, made lo 
 it plainly appear that they were nearly related. Then he 
 humbly proposed an exchange of armour, as a lasting 
 mark of hospitality between them. Virgil consented 
 (for the goddess Diffidence came unseen, and cast a 
 mist before his eyes), though his was of gold and cost a 
 hundred beeves, the other's but of rusty-iroh. However, 
 this glittering armour became the Modern yet worse than 
 his own. Then they agreed to exchange horses ; but, 
 when it came to the trial, Dryden was afraid, and utterly ''- 
 unable to mount. . . . Alter hiatus 20 
 
 / . . . . . .in MS. 
 
 Lucan appeared upon a fiery horse of admirable shape, 
 but headstrong, bearing the rider where he list over the 
 field j he made a mighty slaughter among the enemy's 
 horse ; which destruction to stop, Blackmore, a famous 
 Modem (but one of the mercenaries), strenuously op- 
 posed himself, and darted his javelin with a strong hand, 
 which, falling short of its mark, struck deep in the earth. 
 Then Lucan threw a lance ; but ..^sculapius came un- 
 seen and turned off the point. " Brave Modern," said 30 
 Lucan, " I perceive some god protects you, for never 
 did my arm so deceive me before ; but what mortal can 
 contend with a god ? Therefore, let us fight no longer, 
 
52 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 but present gifts to each other." Lucan then bestowed 
 on the Modern a pair of spurs, and Blackmore gave 
 Lucan a bridle. .... 
 
 Pmica desuni. ..... 
 
 Creech ; but the goddess Dulness took a cloud, formed 
 into the shape of Horace, armed and mounted, and 
 placed in a flying posture before him. Glad was the 
 cavalier to begin a combat with a flying foe, and pursued 
 
 lo the image, threatening aloud ; till at last it led him to 
 the peaceful bower of his father, Ogleby, by whom he 
 was disarmed and assigned to his repose. 
 
 Then Pindai slew , and and Oldham, and 
 
 and Afra' the Amazon, light of foot; never advancing 
 in a direct line, but wheeling with incredible agility and 
 force, he made a terrible slaughter among the enemy's 
 light-horse. Him when Cowley observed, his generous 
 heart burnt within him, and he advanced against the 
 fierce Ancient, imitating his address, his pace, and 
 
 20 career, as well as the vigour of his horse and his 
 own skill would allow. When the two cavaliers had 
 approached within the length of three javelins, first 
 Co\dey threw a lance, which missed Pindar, and 
 passing into the enemy's ranks, fell ineffectual to the 
 ground. Then Pindar darted a javelin so large and 
 weighty, thait scarce a dozen cavaliers, as cavaliers are 
 in our degenerate days, could raise it from the ground ; 
 yet he threw it with ease, and it went, by an unerring" 
 hand, singing through the air j nor could the Modern 
 
 30 have avoided present death, if he had not luckily op- 
 posed the shield that had been given him by Venus. 
 And now both heroes drew their swords; but the 
 1 Modern was so aghast and disordered that he knew not 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 53 
 
 where he was ; his shield dropped from his hands 
 thrice he fled, and thrice he could not escape. At last 
 he turned, and lifting up his hands in the posture of a 
 suppliant, " Godlike Pindar," said he, " spare my life, and ' 
 possess my horse, with thepe arms, beside the ransom i 
 which my friends will give when they hear I am alive 
 and your prisoner." " Dog !" said Pindar, " let your 
 ransom stay with your friends ; but your carcase shall be 
 left for the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field.' 
 With that he raised his sword, and, with a mighty stroke, lo 
 cleft the wretched Modern in twain, the sword pursuing 
 the blow ; and one half lay panting on the ground, to be 
 trod in pieces by the horses' feet ; the other half was 
 borne by the frightened steed through the field. This 
 Venus took, washed it seven times in ambrosia, then *-' ■ 
 struck it thrice with a sprig of 'amaranth; upon which 
 the leather grew round and soft, and the leaves turned 
 into feathers, and, being gilded before, continued gilded 
 still ; so it became a dove, and she harnessed it to her 
 chariot. . . . . . .20 
 
 ..... Hiatus valde de- 
 
 flendus in MS. 
 
 THE EPISODE OF BENTLEY AND 
 WOTTON. 
 
 Day being far spent, and the numerous forces of the 
 Moderns half inclining to a retreat, there issued forth, 
 ,' from a squadron of their heavy-armed foot, a captain 
 whose name was Bentley, the most deformed of all the 
 Moderns ; tall, but without shape or comeliness ; large, 
 but without strength or proportion. His armour was 30 
 
54 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 patched up of a thousand incoherent pieces, and the 
 
 / sound of it, as he marched, was loud and dry, like that 
 made by the fall of a sheet of lead, which an Etesian 
 wind blows suddenly down from the roof of some 
 steeple. His helmet was of old rusty iron, but the 
 vizor was brass, which, tainted by his breath, corrupted 
 into copperas, nor wanted gall from tl^e same fountain, 
 so that, whenever provoked by anger or labour, an 
 atramentous quality, of most malignant nature, was 
 
 lo seen to distil from, his lips. In his right hand he 
 grasped a flail, and (that he might never be unpro- 
 vided of an offensive weapon) a vessel full of ordure in 
 his left. Thus completely armed, he advanced with a 
 slow and heavy pace where the Modern chiefs were 
 holding a consult upon the sum of thiiigs, who, as he 
 came onwards, laughed to behold his crooked leg and 
 humped shoulder, which his boot and armour, vainly en- 
 deavouring to hide, were forced to comply with and 
 expose. The generals made use of him for his talent 
 
 20 of railing, which, kept within government, proved 
 frequently of great service to their cause, but, at other 
 times, did more mischief than good ; for, at the least 
 touch of offence, and often without any at all, he would, 
 like a wounded elephant, convert it against his leaders. 
 Such, at this juncture, was the disposition of Bentley, 
 grieved to see the enemy prevail, and dissatisfied with 
 everybody's conduct but his own. He humbly gave the 
 Modern generals to understand that he conceived, with 
 great submission, they were all a pack of rogues, 
 
 30 and fools, and confounded logger-heads, and illiterate 
 whelps, and nonsensical scoundrels; that, if himself 
 had been constituted general, those presumptuous-dogs, 
 the Ancients, would long before this have been beaten 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 55 
 
 out of the field. "You," said he, "sit here idle, but 
 when I or any other valiant Modern kill an enemy, you 
 are sure to seize the spoil. But I will not march one 
 foot against the foe till you all swear to me that whom- 
 ever I take or kill, his arms I shall quietly possess." 
 Bentley having spoken thus, Scaliger, bestowing him 
 a sour look, "Miscreant prater!" said he, "eloquent 
 only in thine own eyes, thou railest without wit, or 
 truth, or discretion. The malignity of thy temper per- 
 verteth nature ; thy learning makes thee more bar- lo 
 barous ; thy study of humanity more inhuman ; thy 
 converse among poets more grovelling, miry, and dull. 
 All arts of civilizing others render thee rude and 
 untractable ; courts have taught thee ill manners, and 
 polite conversation has finished thee a pedant. Besides, 
 a greater coward burdeneth not the army. But never 
 despond ; I pass my word, whatever spoil thou takest 
 shall certainly be thy own ; though I hope that vile 
 carcase will first become a prey to kites and worms." 
 
 Bentley durst not reply, but, half choked with spleen 20 
 and rage, withdrew, in full resolution of perfornring 
 some great achievement. With him, for his aid and 
 companion, he took his beloved Wotton, resolving by 
 policy or surprise to attempt some neglected quarter of ^ 
 the Ancients' army. They began their march over 
 carcases of their slaughtered friends ; then to the right 
 of their own forces ; then wheeled northward till they 
 came to Aldrovandus's tomb, which they passed on the 
 side of the declining sun. And now they arrived, with 
 fear, toward the enemy's out-guards, looking about, if 30 
 haply they might spy the quarters of the wounded, or 
 some straggling sleepers, unarmed and remote from the 
 rest. As when two mongrel curs, whom native greedi- 
 
56 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 ness and domestic want provoke and join in partner- 
 ship, though fearful, nightly to invade the folds of some 
 rich grazier, they, with tails depressed and lolling 
 tongues, creep soft and slow. Meanwhile the conscious 
 moon, now in her zenith, on their guilty heads darts 
 perpendicular rays ; nor dare they bark, though much 
 provoked at her refulgent visage, whether seen in 
 puddle by reflection or in sphere direct ; but one sur- 
 veys the region round, while the other scouts the plain, 
 
 lo if haply to discover, at distance from the flock, some 
 carcase half devoured, the refuse of gorged wolves or 
 ominous ravens. So marched this lovely, loving pair of 
 friends, nor with less fear and circuinspection, when at 
 a distance they might perceive two shining suits of ar- 
 mour hanging upon an oak, and the owners not far off 
 in a profound sleep. The two friends drew lots, and the 
 pursuing of this adventure fell to Bentley ; on he went, 
 and in his van Confusion and Amaze, while Horror and 
 Affright brought up the rear. As he came near, behold, 
 
 20 two heroes of the Ancients' army, Phalaris and ^sop, 
 lay fast asleep. Bentley would fain have despatched 
 them both, and, stealing close, aimed his flail at 
 Phalaris's breast ; but then the goddess Affright, inter- 
 posing, caught the Modem in her icy arms, and dragged 
 him from the danger she foresaw; both the dormant 
 heroes happened to turn at the same instant, though 
 soundly sleeping, and busy in a dream. For Phalaris 
 was just that minute dreaming how a most vile poetaster 
 had lampooned him, and how he had got him roaring 
 
 30 in his bull. And .^Esop dreamed that, as he and the 
 Ancient chiefs were lying on the ground, a wild ass 
 broke loose, ran about, trampling and kicking in their 
 faces. Bentley, leaving the two heroes asleep, seized 
 
BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 57 
 
 on both their armours, and withdrew in quest of his '" 
 darling Wotton. 
 
 '^ He, in the meantime, had wandered long in search of 
 some enterprise, till at length he arrived at a small rivu- 
 let that issued from a fountain hard by, called, in the 
 language of mortal men. Helicon. Here he stopped, 
 and, -parched with thirst, resolved to allay it in this 
 limpid stream. Thrice with profane hands he essayed 
 to raise the water to his lips, and thrice it slipped all 
 through his fingers. Then he stopped prone on his lo 
 breast, but, ere his mouth had kissed the liquid crystal, 
 Apollo came, and in the channel held his shield betwixt 
 the Modern and the fountain, so that he drew up no- 
 thing but mud. For, although no fountain on earth can 
 compare with the clearness of Helicon, yet there lies at 
 bottom a thick sediment of slime and mud ; for so 
 Apollo begged of Jupiter, as a punishment to those who 
 durst attempt to taste it with unhallowed lips, and for a -' 
 lesson to all not to draw too deep or far from the 
 spring. 20 
 
 At the fountain-head Wotton discerned two heroes ; 
 the one he could not distinguish, but the other was soon 
 known for Temple, general of the Allies to the Ancients. 
 His bade was turned, and he was employed in drinking 
 large draughts in his helmet from the fountain, where he 
 had withdrawn himself to rest from the toils of the war. 
 Wotton, observing him, with quaking knees and trern- 
 bling hands, spoke thus to himself: O that I could kill 
 this destroyer of our army, what renown should I pur- 
 chase among the chiefs ! but to issue out against him, 30 
 man against man, shield against shield, and lance 
 against lance, what Modern of us dare ? for he fights 
 like a god, and Pallas or Apollo are ever at his elbow. 
 
58 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 But, O mother ! if what Fame reports be true, that I 
 am the son of so great a goddess, grant me to hit 
 Temple with this lance, that the stroke may send him 
 to hell, and that I may return in safety and triumph, 
 laden with his spoils. The first part of this prayer 
 the gods granted at the intercession of his mother 
 and of Momus; but the rest, by a perverse wind 
 sent from Fate, was scattered in the air. Then 
 Wottoii grasped his lance, and, brandishing it thrice 
 
 lo over his head, darted it with all his might; the goddess, 
 his mother, at the same time adding strength to his arm. 
 Away the lance went whizzing, and reached even to the 
 belt of the averted Ancient, upon which lightly grazing, 
 it fell to the ground. Temple neither felt the weapon 
 touch him nor heard it fall : and Wotton might have 
 escaped to his army, with the honour of having remitted 
 his lance against so great a leader unrevenged; but 
 Apollo, enraged that a javelin flung by the assistance of 
 so foul a goddess should pollute his fountain, put on 
 
 20 the shape of , and softly came to young Boyle, 
 
 who then accompanied Temple : he pointed first to the 
 lance, then to the distant Modern that flung it, and com- 
 manded the young hero to take immediate revenge. 
 Boyle, clad in a suit of armour which had been given 
 him by all the gods, immediately advanced against the 
 trembling foe, who now fled before him. As a young 
 lion in the Libyan plains, or Araby desert, sent by his 
 aged sire to hunt for prey, or health, or exercise, he 
 scours along, wishing to meet some tiger from the moun- 
 
 30 tains, or a furious boar ; if chance a wild ass, with bray- 
 ings importune, affronts his ear, the generous beast, 
 though loathing to distain his claws with blood so vile, 
 yet much provoked at the offensive noise, which Echo, 
 
I 
 
 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 59 
 
 foolish nymph, Uke her ill-judging sex, repeats much 
 louder, and with more delight than Philomela's song, he 
 vindicates the honour of the forest, and hunts the noisy 
 long-eared animal. So Wotton fled, so Boyle pursued. »' 
 But Wotton, heavy-armed, and slow of foot, began to 
 slack his course, when his lover Bentley appeared, re- 
 turning laden with the spoils of the two sleeping An- 
 cients. Boyle observed him well, and soon discovering 
 the helmet and shield of Phalaris his friend, both which 
 he had lately with his own hands new polished and gilt, lo 
 rage sparkled in his eyes, and, leaving his pursuit after 
 Wotton, he furiously rushed on against this new ap- 
 proaches Fain would he be revenged on both ; but 
 both now fled different ways: and, as a woman in a 
 little house that gets a painful livelihood by spinning, 
 if chance her geese be scattered o'er the common, she 
 courses round the plain from side to side, compelling 
 here and there the stragglers to the flock ! they cackle 
 loud, and flutter o'er the champaign ; so Boyle pursued, ^, 
 so flee this pair of friends : finding at length their flight 20 
 was vain, they bravely joined, and drew themselves in 
 phalanx. First Bentley threw a spear with all his force, 
 hoping to pierce the enemy's breast ; but Pallas came 
 unseen, and in the air took off the point, and clapped 
 on one of lead, which, after a dead bang against the 
 enemy's shield, fell blunted to the ground. Then Boyle, 
 observing well his time, took up a lance of wondrous 
 length and sharpness ; and as this pair of friends com- 
 pacted, stood close side by side, he wheeled him to the 
 right, and, whh unusual force, darted the weapon. 30 
 Bentley saw his fate approach, and flanking down his 
 arms close to his ribs, hoping to save his body, in went 
 the point, passing through arm and side, nor stopped or 
 
60 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 spent its force till it had also pierced the valiant Wotton, 
 
 who, going to sustain his dying friend, shared his fate. 
 
 (■As when a skilful cook has trussed a brace ofwood- 
 
 i cocks, he with iron skewer pierces the tender sides of 
 
 /both their legs and wings close pinioned to the rib ; so 
 
 T/as this pair of friends transfixed, till down they fell, 
 
 joined in their lives, joined in their deaths : so closely 
 
 joined that Charon would mistake them both for one, 
 
 and waft them over Styx for half his fare. Farewell, 
 
 10 beloved, loving pair ; few equals have you left behind : 
 
 and happy and immortal shall you be, if all my wit and 
 
 eloquence can make you. 
 
 And now 
 
 Desunt ccetera. 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Page 25, line 20. — Si. James's Library. The Royal Library at 
 the Palace of St. James's, afterwards presented to the British 
 Museum. The Librarian at this time was Bentley, whose first 
 Dissertation was published in 1697. fewift began the Battle of the 
 Books in the same year, though it was not published until 1704. A 
 similar mock-heroic had been written in France on the same subject 
 by Franjois de Calli&es under the title Histoire PoStique de la 
 guerre nouvellement declarie entrc les Anciens et les Modemes, the 
 heroes being Fontenelle, Perrault, and other French writers who 
 commenced the controversy (see Introduction). 
 
 Page 29, line 3. — War is the child of pride. "Riches produce 
 pride ; pride is war's ground/' Wing's Sheet Almanac (Hawkes- 
 ■worth). 
 
 Page 31, line 2. — Two tops of Parnassus. The form of Mount 
 Parnassus lends itself to Swift's satire. 
 
 Cf. Wordsworth— 
 
 " That inspiring hill which ' did divide 
 Into two ample horns his forehead wide.' " 
 
 {Misc. Sonnets.) 
 
 And Milton— 
 
 " The two-topt mount Divine." 
 
 (An Epitaph recently published by 
 , Mr. H. Morley for the first time). 
 
 Page 31, line 10. — Especially towards the East. In Sir William 
 Temple's Essay on Ancient and Modern Languages, the author 
 develops a theory that all European learning is of Oriental origin. 
 
62 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 Page 32, line 24. — To set up trophies on both sides. This often 
 happened in the wars between Greek states. Sometimes when 
 one side had erected a trophy, their opponents would afterwards pull 
 it down. See Thucydides, A 54, 105 ; B 92 ; 6 24. 
 
 I'age 33, line 5. — Their representatives, i.e., the title-page of the 
 book exposed as an advertisement 
 
 PAge 33, line 15 — Ccemeteries. So spelled by Swift, in accordance 
 with the derivation of the word (/coi/tdu, I sleep), which originally 
 meant a sleeping-place. Probably Swift wishes to insinuate that 
 the works contained in the Royal Library were somniferous. 
 
 Page 33, line 17. — Brutum hominis. This theory was held by 
 some of the old philosophers. In a MS. poem recently discovered 
 in the British Museum, and ascribed to Milton by Mr. Henry 
 Morley, occur the following lines : — 
 
 " He whom Heaven did call away 
 Out of this Hermitage of clay 
 Has left some reliques in this Urne 
 As a pledge of his returne. 
 
 These ashes w^i" doe here remaine 
 A vitall tincture still retain 
 A seminall forme within y« deeps 
 Of this little chaos sleeps." 
 
 {An Epitaph (1647), published in a 
 Collection entitled The King and 
 the Commons.') 
 
 Mr. Morley remarks on this theory : " The suggestion of revival 
 from dust is directly taken from the old doctrine of Palingenesis, ' 'by 
 which," says Isaac Disraeli in his chapter on Dreams at the Dawn 
 of Philosophy, " Schott, Kircher, Gaffiirel, Borelli, Bigby, and 
 the whole of that admirable school, discovered in the ashes of 
 plants their primitive forms, which were again raised up by the force 
 of heat." 
 
 Brutum, materia genus. Brut nostri (the French) vocant quod 
 arte nondum politum est. — Du Cange's Lexicon. 
 
 Brut in French means unshaped, rude, e.g.,pierre brute, unhewn 
 stone. 
 
 Pags 33> line 29. — Scotus. Johannes Duns Scotus, a Franciscan 
 friar (d. 1308), called by his contemporaries the Subtle Doctor. He 
 taught at the Universities of Oxford and Paris, and entered into a. 
 controversy with the followers of Aquinas on the subject of the 
 Immaculate Conception. The last-named school called their ad- 
 versaries Dttnsers, whence our word dunce. Scotus was one of the 
 schoolmen, and held the metaphysical doctrines of Aristotle. 
 
NOTES. gg 
 
 Page 33, line 32. — They both concerted to seize Plato, &'c. 
 This refers to the continual controversies between the Aristotelian 
 schoolmen and the Platonists. The former were victorious at the 
 time, but modem theories have superseded to a great extent those 
 of Aristotle. 
 
 Page 34, line 5. — Polemics should be held fast by a chain, as 
 we would chain up a dangerous lunatic. This idea may have been 
 suggested to Svdft by seeing valuable books secured by a chain to 
 their places in some library. At the Reformation all churches were 
 supplied with Bibles chained to the lectern. 
 
 Polemics — works of controversy (Gr. irdXc/ios, war). 
 
 Page 34, line 33. — The Guardian. Bentley, called afterwards 
 by Swift the Regent. 
 
 Page 35, line I. — Renowned for his humanity. See Boyle's 
 Preface to Phalaris — " bibliothecarius pro singulari sua humanitate 
 negavit," &c. Humanity is here used in its original sense of 
 courtesy. 
 
 P^e 35, line 4. — Two of the Ancient Chiefs. ^Esop and 
 Phalaris. 
 
 Page 35, line 24. Learned dust .... blown into the 
 keeper's eyes, i.e, that Bentley had become crazed by reading modern 
 authors. * 
 
 Page 36, line i.— Ren^ Descartes (1596-1650), the father of 
 modern metaphysics. He was educated by the Jesuits of the 
 College of La Fl^che, which he left at the age of sixteen. The 
 next sixteen years of his life he spent in foreign travel, sometimes 
 campaigning with the French army, which he accompanied for 
 some time as a volunteer, sometimes urged from place to place by 
 a thirst for knowledge, and a naturally restless disposition. At the 
 age of thirty-two he determined to devote himself solely to philo- 
 sophy, and retiring to Holland, he produced his celebrated 
 Discours de la Mtihode, by which he designed to overthrow all 
 previous systems of philosophy. His method was to take nothing 
 for granted, and, where possible, to divest himself of all notions 
 acquired by reading, &c. , lest they should contain errors. After 
 the publication of his Discours, Descartes returned to France, but, 
 driven away by the political disturbances of the Fronde, he returned 
 to Sweden in 1649, where he died. Descartes shook the Aristotelian 
 philosophy to its foundation; hence the error of "clapping" him 
 " next to Aristotle." 
 
 Page 36, line 2. — Hobbes (1588-1679), a modem philosopher, 
 one of whose theories was that men were naturally wicked, and 
 selfishness was the ultimate source of all their actions. His great 
 work the Leviathan embodies this view. He says, for instance — 
 
64 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 " Men are apt to weep that prosecute revenge, when the revenge is 
 suddenly stopped or frustrated by the repentance of their adversary ; 
 and such, too, are tears of reconciliation," This would, of course, 
 render him an uncongenial companion to Plato. 
 
 Page 36, line 2. — The Seven Wise Masters. In Brewer's 
 Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the explanation of this is as 
 follows : — " A Roman prince was placed under the charge of seven 
 wise instructors ; when he grew to man's estate, his step-mother 
 made improper advances to him, and, being refused, accused him 
 to the king of offering her violence. By consulting the stars the 
 prince found out that his life was in danger, but that the crisis 
 would be passed without injury if he remained silent for seven days. 
 The wise masters, each in turn, tell the king a tale to illustrate the 
 evils of inconsiderate punishments, and the king resolves to relent ; 
 but the queen at night prevails upon him to carry out his sentence. 
 The seven days having passed, the prince also tells a tale which 
 embodies the whole truth, whereupon the king sentences the queen 
 to lose her life. This collection of Tales, called ' Sandabar's 
 Parables,' is very ancient." 
 
 Page 36, line 3. — Dryden was the author of a well-known trans- 
 lation of Virgil. 
 
 Page 36, line 4. — Wilhers{s,o spelled by Swift). — George Wither, 
 a lyrical and satirical poet, who published in 1622 a collection of 
 poems entitled The Mistress of Philarete. Withers was a Puritan, 
 and was imprisoned for his political writings. 
 
 Page 36, line II. — Light-armed horse. Lyrical poets. Probably 
 a reference to the winged-horse, Pegasus, in the well-known 
 classical fable which typifies poetry. 
 
 The heavy-armed horse were the epic poets. 
 
 The heavy-armed foot and mercenaries were the historians, of 
 whom Swift entertained no very high opinion. For the epithet 
 " foot, " cf. the Latin, sermo pedestris. 
 
 Out of case, in bad condition. 
 
 Page 36, line 15. — Trading among the Ancients — copying 
 classical authors. 
 
 Page 36, line 28. — The Moderns were much the more ancient of 
 the two. "According to the modern paradox" (note by Swift). 
 See Bacon, Nov. Org., Lib. I., aphorism 84. " De antiquitate opinio, 
 quam homines de ipsa fovent, negligens omnino est, et vix verbo 
 congrua, mundi enim senium et grandsevitas pro antiquitate vere 
 habenda sunt ; quae temporibus nostris tribui debent, non juniori 
 Eetati mundi, qualis apud antiques fuit. Ilia enim setas respectu 
 nostri, antiqua et major ; respectu mundi ipsius nova et minor fuit." 
 The world is older and more experienced now than in the time, of 
 the ancients, ergo, the Moderns are the more ancient. 
 
NOTES. 65 
 
 Page 36, line 32. — So mean to borrow — omission of as correlative 
 with so ommon in Swift's writings. 
 
 Page 36, line ^■^.—•EspeciaUyi ,we French and English.— Van 
 contention arose in France out of the writings of Perrault and 
 Fontenelle, and was transported to England by Temple. 
 
 Page 37, line 8. — Foundered.— MzAs lame in the feet by sores 
 (Lat., /^Wcra). 
 
 Pagfi 37) line 20. — Several of , the Modems fled over. Temple 
 and Boyle with their supporters. 
 
 Page 37, line 33. — Modern -way of fortification. One of the 
 advantages of the Modems over the Ancients urged by the 
 advocates of the former, was their superiority in mathematics and 
 fortification. For the comparison of a spider's web to a fortified 
 place, compare Pope — 
 
 " Who made the spider parallels design, 
 Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line ? " 
 
 Essay on Man, Ep. iii. 
 
 Page 38, line 2. — Constable. Lat. , comes stabuii (Master of the 
 horse) ; Fr., connltahle, formerly a high military functionary at the 
 English and French courts. Used here somewhat loosely for 
 chatelain. 
 
 P^e 38, line 4. — Ports to sally. Sally-ports are small doors, 
 whence troops may Issue unseen, to surprise the enemy. 
 
 Page 38, line w.— Expatiating, used in its original sense of 
 walking abroad (Lat., ex and spatior, I walk abroad). Compare 
 Pope — 
 
 " Expatiate firee o'er all this scene of man.'' 
 
 Essay on Man, Ep. i. 
 
 And Milton, in a passage referring to bees, which Swift may 
 have had in his mind — 
 
 " Expatiate and confer 
 Their state affairs." 
 
 Par. Lost, i., 774. 
 
 Page 38, line 14. — Thrice he endeavoured .... and thrice 
 the centre shook. Swift is still burlesquing Milton ; cf.— 
 " Thrice he essayed, and thrice, in spite of scorn, 
 Tears such as angels weep burst forth." 
 
 Par. Lost, i. 
 
66 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 Centre is also used by Milton for the centre of the earth. 
 " As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole." 
 
 Par. Lost, Book i. 
 Compare also Virgil-^ 
 
 ' ' Ter conatus ibi coUo dare brachia circum 
 Ter frustra comprensa manus effiigit imago." 
 
 ^neid, vi., 700. 
 
 Page 38, line 18. — Beelzebub with all his legions. Beelzebub was 
 the god of flies, worshipped by the Philistines. 
 
 Page 38, line 22. — Had acquitted himself of his toils. Had freed 
 himself from his bonds. "Toil" is from the Latin, tela, a web 
 (not to be confounded with " toil," work, akin to the verb till). 
 
 Page 39, line 3. — Good words. — A common adjuration in Swift's 
 time to a man who was becoming abusive ; cf. Shakspere : — 
 
 " Pauca verba, Sir John ; good worts." 
 
 Merry Wives, i., i., 122. 
 And Terence — 
 
 " Bona verba, quseso." 
 
 Page 39, line 5. — To droll. — To be facetious, now nearly 
 obsolete as a verb. 
 
 Page 39, line 22. — The true spirit of eontroversy, with resolution 
 to be heartily scurrilous and angry. This was but too often the 
 case in controversy, which descended sometimes to personal abuse, 
 as in the disputation between Milton and Salmasius concerning 
 the execution of Charles I., which soon became most- scurrilous. 
 
 Page 40, line 31. — Drone-pipe, the largest pipe in a bag-pipe. 
 Drone (onomatopoeia), the non-working bee ; cf. Gray — 
 
 " Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight." 
 
 Elegy. 
 
 Page 39, line 9. — The idea of representing ancient poetry by the 
 bee may have been suggested by Horace — 
 
 " Ego apis matinse 
 More modoque 
 Grata carpentis thyma per laborem 
 Plurimum circa nemus.' ' 
 
 Odes, iv., 2. 
 
NOTES. 67 
 
 Page 40, line 19. — The materials are naught, i.e., are bad. 
 Naught is now obsolete in the sense in which it is here used ; cf. 
 
 " The pancakes were naught." 
 
 As You Like It, Act i., Sc. 2. 
 
 Page 40, line 33. — Whether is the nobler being of the two. 
 Whether is, strictly speaking, a pronoun meaning ■ithich of two, 
 and is connected with " who " (Anglo-Sax., hwsether, hwa). It 
 is seldom used as a pronoun in modern English. 
 
 Page 41, line z. — Overweening. Conceited. To ween (Ger., 
 ■wahnen), meaning to think, is dying out of modem English, being 
 seldom used but in poetic diction. 
 
 "Above the foaming tide, I ween, 
 Scarce half the charger's heck was seen." 
 
 Scott, Lay of the Last Minstrel. 
 
 Page 41, line 4. — Fly-bane. A poison deadly to flies (Anglo- 
 Sax., band, a murderer) ; cf. ratsbane, henbane. Perhaps the word 
 is invented by Swift. 
 
 Page 41, line %.— Eagerness. Bitterness (Fr., aigre) ; cf. — 
 " A nipping and an eager air." 
 
 Hamlet, i., 3. 
 
 Page 41, line 12. — The bee grown impatient, for having grown. 
 
 Page 41, line 19. — A strange effect of the regents humanity, who 
 had torn off his title-page, and chained him among the Moderns. — 
 The regent is, of course, Bentley. His " singular humanity " has 
 already been referred to. The passage refers to Bentley's denial of 
 the genuine antiquity of ^sop's Fables (see Introduction'). 
 
 Page 41, line 23. — He tried all his arts, and turned himself into a 
 thousand fotms. — As did Proteus in his attempt to escape from the 
 shepherd Aristaeus — 
 
 " Omnia transformat sese in miracula rerum, 
 Ignemque, horribilemque feram, fluviumque liquentem." 
 
 Virgil, Ceorgics, iv., 441. 
 
 Page 41, line 32. — Adapt, for adapted. Formed on a false 
 analogy with words like " compact," which is strictly a perfect 
 participle passive, and is so used by many early writers. 
 
 " If he compact of jars grow musical." 
 
 As You Like It, ii., 7. 
 
68 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 Page 42, line 10. — His paradoxes. The ' great modem paradox,' 
 according to Swift, is that " the Moderns are the true ancients." 
 See above. 
 
 Page 42, line 27. — Anything else of genuine. A classical idiom ; 
 cf. Latin phrases, such as quid pluris, and Fr., Hen deflus. 
 
 Page 43, line 9. Sweetness and light. — It is a remarkable fact 
 that this phrase, now such a watchword in modern criticism, should 
 have its origin in a misanthropic writer like Swift. Matthew Arnold 
 was the first to adopt it. 
 
 Page 43, line II. — Descant. Strictly speaking, a song, then a. 
 discourse ; cf. Milton — 
 
 " She [the nightingale] all night long her amorous descant sung." 
 
 Par. Lost, iv., 603. 
 
 Page 43, line 16. — Cabals — ^plots, plans (Hebrew, gabbalah, 
 tradition, mysterious doctrine) ; not derived, as stated sometimes, 
 from the initials of the members of Charles II.'s notorious 
 ministry. 
 
 Page 43, line 21. — The horse, the poets; from P^asus, the 
 winged horse, typifying poetry. 
 
 Tlie heavy-armed horse were the epic poets, the light-armed the 
 lyrical writers ; the bowmen were the metaphysicians, the dragoons 
 the medical men — an allusion to their blood-letting propensities, as 
 is seen by the mention of their lances dipped in poison. The 
 bullets of a malignant nature were, of course, pills, the noiseless 
 white powder, medicine. Those whom Swift satirically styles 
 mercenaries are the modem historians. The engineers are thfe 
 mathematical writers. The confused multitude, led by Scotus and 
 Bellarmine, refers to the schoolmen and their followers. Calones 
 (Lat. , camp followers) were the writers of pamphlets and other 
 ephemeral compositions. The absence of coats refers to the 
 unbound form in which their works were published. Note that 
 Swift calls the modern historians mercenaries ; the ancient ones he 
 merely refers to as " the foot." 
 
 Page 43, line 24. — Despriaux. Nicholas Boileau Despreaux, a 
 French satirical poet (b. 1636, d. 1711), who took the side of the 
 Ancients in the French controversy started by Perrault. Swift has 
 made a slip in not including him with Temple among the " allies " of 
 the Ancients. 
 
 Page 43, line 26. — Gassendi (fl. 1630) was h, writer on physics, 
 astronomy, and metaphysics. He was a disciple of Bacon, and 
 attacked the Cartesian philosophy. 
 
NOTES. 69 
 
 Page 43, line 29. — Evander was a king of Arcadia, who fled to 
 Italy, and is mentioned in the j^neid. Swift has here written 
 Evander by mistake for Acestes, who was a Sicilian king, also 
 mentioned by Virgil. In an archery contest, a dove is fixed to a 
 mast by a string as a mark for the archers. First, Hippocoon hits 
 the mast with his arrow ; then, Mnestheus cuts the cord with his 
 arrow, and the bird is set free ; but before it has time to escape, 
 Eurytion transfixes the bird. Acestes, seeing that there is no mark 
 left for him to shoot at, draws his arrow to the head, and aims 
 straight upward. The missile ascends, leaving a fiery track in its 
 path, and descends no more to earth. 
 
 " Arsit arundo, 
 
 Signavitque viam flammis, tenuesque recessit 
 
 Consumta in ventos." 
 
 Aineid, v., 525. 
 
 Page 43, line yi.-^Paracelsus (d. 1541), a theosophist and 
 empiric, born in Switzerland. He believed that every person 
 possessed an astral body, which survived after death, and was the 
 cause of apparitions and ghostly visitations. Rhaetia was the 
 ancient name of the country about the Tyrol. 
 
 Page 43, line 33. — Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, 
 of which the Ancients were ignorant, and the knowledge of which 
 was one of the points of superiority claimed by the Moderns. Aga, 
 a Turkish military oflficer. 
 
 Page 44, line 6. — Guicciardini, an Italian who wrote a History 
 of the Civil Wars in France. 
 
 Page 44, line 6. — Polydore Virgil, an Italian ecclesiastic, born 
 about 1470. He wrote a History of England. 
 
 Page 44, line 7. — Buchanan (1506-1582), a Scottish scholar, who 
 translated the Psalms into Latin verse, and wrote a History of 
 Scotland. 
 
 Mariana — a Spaniard who published in 1599 a treatise on mon- 
 archy, entitled De Re%e et Regis Institutione. He also wrote a 
 History of Spain. 
 
 Camden (1551-1623), an annalist, who wrote a Life of Elizabeth 
 and a History entitled Britannia. He was a friend of Ben Jonson. 
 . Regiomontanus (John MUUer of Kbnigsberg), a mathematician 
 and astronomer of the fifteenth century. 
 
 Cardinal Bellarmine flourished at the beginning of the seven- 
 teenth century. He is chiefly noted as a polemical writer in favour 
 of the Romish Church; and of him Hallam says: "No one had 
 entered the field on that side with more acuteness ; no one had 
 displayed more skill in marshalling the various arguments of con- 
 troversial theology, so as to support each other, and serve the 
 grand purpose of church authority." 
 
70 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 Page 44, line 13. — L 'Estrange (Sir Soger), one of the Restora- 
 tion pamphleteers, who wrote political tracts conceived in the most 
 violent style and in the coarsest language. He projected the 
 London Gazette. 
 
 Page 44, line 20 — Vossius {Gerafd), a German scholar, who 
 wrote several works on philology and classical literature. He 
 was Professor of History at Amsterdam, from 1633 to 1649. 
 
 Page 44, line 33. — .M)»««J, " the god of pleasantry among the 
 Ancients. He was continually employed in satirizing the gods, and 
 whatever they did was freely turned to ridicule." He is repre- 
 sented as a patron of the Modems, in^mjich as they claimed 
 superiority in works of humour. — - V''^'^-*- 
 
 ^~ Page 45, line 18. — A light chain which passes from them to 
 /upiter's great toe ; cf. Homer : — 
 
 " Seipijii ■xpvadriv i^ oipavbBev KpefiAaavTes 
 ndcres 5' i^&VTeaOe 0eol ircural re Biaivai 
 'AXX' oiiK &v ipiaan' l^ oipavbBev reSlovSe 
 Ztjv virarov fi'/jcTTtap' ^ oiiS' el fid\a iroWa K&tione. " 
 
 Iliad, viii., 19. 
 And Tennyson : — 
 
 " For so the whole round earth is every way 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.'' 
 
 Morte d' Arthur. 
 
 Page 4S, line 24. — Second causes. A term in vogue among the 
 schoolmen. The context explains its meaning sufficiently. 
 
 Page 45, line 32. — Criticism. This description is more or less 
 suggested by the description of Error in the first book of the 
 Faery Queene and by Milton's description of Sin smd Death in 
 the second book of Paradise Lost. Compare also the descrip- 
 tion of Spleen in the Rape of the Loch 
 
 Page 46, line 6. — Hoodwinked, blindfolded. Cf. Romeo and 
 Juliet, i., 4, 3 :— 
 
 " We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf." 
 
 Hoodman-blind was the old name of blind-man's-bufiF. 
 
 Page 46, line 22. — Who then will hereafter sacrifice or build 
 altars to our divinity ? Cf. Virgil : — 
 
 " Et quisquam numen Junonis adoret 
 Praeterea, aut supplex aris imponet honorem.'' 
 
 j^neid, i., 48. 
 
NOTES. • 71 
 
 Page 47, line 2. — Instinct, moved, animated. C/. Wordsworth : — 
 " Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark." 
 
 A Morning Exercise. 
 
 Page 47, line i8. — Drawn by tame geese. A parody of the swans 
 of Venus. 
 
 Page 47, line 19. — Influence, Originally the power exercised by 
 a star on human destiny. Cf. Milton : — 
 
 " Store of ladies, whose bright eyes 
 Rain influence." 
 
 L'Allegro. 
 
 Page 47, line 23. — Gresham and Covent Garden. The Royal 
 Society met at Gresham College ; and Will's Coffee-house, the resort 
 of poets and critics, was situated in Covent Garden. 
 
 Page 47, line 25. — Upon the point to engage, i.e., of engaging; 
 note construction. 
 
 Page 47, line 21 .^Desert is, strictly speaking, an adjective from 
 the perf. part, of "desero. 
 
 Page 47, line 28. — Virtuoso, one skilled in a knowledge of the 
 fine arts, &c. 
 
 Page 47, line 33. — Wotton. William Wotton, who wrote the 
 treatise on Ancient and Modern Learning, the second edition of 
 which played such an important part in the Boyle and Bentley con- 
 troversy. (See Introduction^ 
 
 Page 48, line 30. — She vanished, . . . and the hero perceived 
 it was the goddess his mother. So Venus beguiles .^Eneas when 
 accosting him on the shores of Libya : — 
 
 " Dixit ; et avertens rosea cervice refulsit, 
 Ambrpsiseque comse divinum vertice odoretn 
 Spiravere : pedes vestis defluxit ad imos, 
 Et vera incessu patuit dea." 
 
 .rEneid, i., 402. 
 
 Page 49, line 2. — A hundred mouths, and tongues, and hands' 
 and pens. Cf. Virgil : — 
 
 ^ " Non, mihi si linguae centum sint, oraque centum, 
 Ferrea vox. " 
 
 j^neid, vi., 625. 
 And Homer : — 
 
 " Oi)5 el /lioi hiKa /i^v yKSxTatu, Sixa U ffT^/taT dev 
 <^av7t 3" djipriKTOS, x^^i'^ov Si fxoi ^rop iveirj." 
 
 Iliad, ii. , 489. 
 
72 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 Page 49, line 7. — Galen, a celebrated physician in the age of 
 Marcus Aurelius (d. 193 A.D.). 
 
 P^e 49, line 12. — The wounded aga. This evidently refers to 
 Harvey, vpho is spoken of above as the " aga " of the dragoons. 
 The supposed omission probably refers to a contest between Galen 
 and Harvey, in which the latter is worsted. 
 
 Page 49, line 16. — Scott says that Temple in his attack on the 
 Modems makes no reference to Jfewton, although the Principia 
 was published in 1657. Temple also omits to speak of Baco n ; and 
 Swift in m aking Arist otle's spear miss him does him but scant 
 justice. The result of the battle was very different from what Swift 
 represents it to have been, for Bacon's philosophy superseded the 
 Aristotelian in a great measure. 
 
 Page 49, line 23. — Death like a star of superior infltience drew him 
 into his own vortex. Influence here is used in its astrological sense; 
 explained above. The Cartesians imagined all space to be pervaded 
 vrith a subtle ether moving in vortices ; and to these vortices they 
 ascribed the motions of the planets. Swift refers to this theory also 
 in the " Tale of a Tub " :— 
 
 " Cartesius reckoned to see, before he died, the sentiments of all 
 philosophers, like so many lesser stars in his ovni romantic sj^tem, 
 wrapped and drawn within his own vortex." 
 
 Page 49, line 33. — Gondibert was the hero of a poem written by 
 Sir William Davenant in the time of the Commonwealth. It is in 
 heroic quatrains (the same metre as Gray's Elegy), and the style is 
 pompous and stilted. Swift mounts Gondibert on a " staid, sober 
 gelding," because the march of the verse is slow and tedious." 
 Homer's furious horse, which none but him could inanage, refers to 
 the fier y rush of his hexameters. 
 
 Page 50, line 9. — Sir fohn Denham (1615-1668) was a writer of 
 correct and smooth verse, who, however, has only left one poem of 
 great merit, viz.. Cooper's Hill. Dr. Johnson praises him as being 
 " the author of a species of composition that may be denominated 
 local poetry, of which the fiindamental subject is some particular 
 landscape, to be poetically described vfith the addition of such 
 embellishments as may be supplied by historical retrospection or 
 incidental meditation." 
 
 Page 50, line 14. — Samuel Wesley was a Lincolnshire clergyman, 
 who wrote a Life of Christ in verse. He was the father of the 
 celebrated John Wesley. 
 
 Page 50, line 15. — Charles Perrault originated the dispute as to 
 the superiority of the Ancients to the^oderns by his poem Le 
 
NOTES. 73 
 
 Steele de Louis le Grand. He was the advocate of the Moderns, 
 and was supported by Fontenelle. Boileau undertook the defence 
 of the Ancients. 
 
 3- Page so, line 24. — Dryden was attacked by Swift, who is said 
 never to have forgiven a speech of the former. Early in life Swift 
 had written some verses, i and on his showing them to Dryden, to 
 whom he was related, they were handed back to him with the 
 remark, " Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet." Gray's lines on 
 Dryden speak of the poet more highly : — 
 
 " Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car, 
 Wide o'er the fields of glory bear 
 Two coursers of ethereal race, 
 With necks in thunder clothed, and long resounding 
 pace." 
 
 Progress of Poesy. 
 
 Page 50, line 31. — Visor, or vizard, the front part of a helmet, 
 capable of being thrown back to show the warrior's face. 
 
 Page 51, line 4. — The lady in a lobster. A formation in the head 
 of a lobster, so called from its supposed resemblance to the form of 
 a woman. An old conundrum compares a lobster to a lover, 
 ' ' because he has a lady in his head." 
 
 Page 51, line 6. — Pent-house (Fr., appentis), a lean-to, or shed, 
 built against the wall of a building. The old form of tjie word is 
 " pentice." The modem spelling is the result of false analogy. 
 
 Page 51, line IJ. — His was of gold, and cost a hundred beeves, the 
 other's but of rusty iron. Copied from Homer — 
 
 " '^vS' aSre VXaiKiiJ KpovlSris ippivai i^4\eTo Zeis 
 °0s irpJs 'S!vSeldj]v Aioju^Sea reixe' &fia^e 
 ■Xpiaea x<i)^Keluv eKari/tSot' ivvea^olimi." , 
 
 Iliad, vi., 234 — 
 
 where Diomedes and Glaucus exchange armour, though that of the 
 latter was of gold, and that of the former only of brass. Zeus, 
 however, deprives Glaucus of his judgment for the time being, and 
 his armour, worth a hundred beeves, is handed over to Diomedes. 
 
 Pag0 51, line 19. — Dryden was afraid and unable to mount 
 VirgU's horse ; i.e., he could not manage the hexameter, his trans- 
 lation being written in heroic rhymed verse. 
 
 Page Jl) line 22. — Lucan, a poet of the age of Nero, whose 
 resentment he incurred. Being discovered in a conspiracy against 
 the emperor, he was sentenced to death, but allowed to choose the 
 
74 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 manner of his execution. He had his veins opened in a wann bath. 
 His chief poem is the Pharsalia, which of all his compositions alone 
 survives. 
 
 Page Si, line 25. — Sir Richard Blackmore was a physician who 
 wrote very long and very dull poems. The heaviness of his works 
 became a by-word among his contemporaries. Dryden says that 
 he— 
 
 " Writ to the rumbling of his coach's wheels." 
 
 And Pope speaks of him as follows : — 
 
 " But far o'er all sonorous Blackmore's strain ; 
 Walls, steeples, skies bray back to him again. 
 In Totnam fields, the Brethren, with amaze. 
 Prick all their ears up, and forget to graze ! 
 Long Chanc'ry-lane retentive rolls the sound, 
 And courts to courts return it round and round ; 
 Thames wafts it hence to Rufus' roaring hall. 
 And Hungerford re-echoes bawl for bawl. 
 All hail him victor in both gifts of song. 
 Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long." 
 
 Dunciad, ii., 260. 
 
 Page 51, line 29. — JEsculapius was the physician of the Argo- 
 nauts ; and such was his skill that he is said to have restored many 
 persons to life. Blackmore, though a very bad poet, was a phy- 
 sician of great skill and eminence ; hence the protection given him 
 by ^sculapius, who wards off Lucan's lance. 
 
 Vag& f)2, line l. — Lucan bestowed the Modem a pair of spurs, and 
 Blackmore gave Lucan a bridle. Lucan's verse is, according to 
 Swift, too fiery, and Blackmore's too slow. The bridle is to curb 
 the ardour of the former, the spurs to stimulate the sluggishness of 
 the latter. 
 
 Page 52, line 6. — Creech, A translator of Horace of small merit. 
 
 Page 52, line 11. — Ogled}'. A translator of Homer and Virgil, 
 ridiculed by Pope in the Dunciad, i., 141 : — 
 
 " Here swells the shelf with Ogleby the great. 
 Here, stamp'd with arms, Newcastle shines complete." 
 
 Speaking of Gibber, Pope mentions his "great forefather, 
 Ogleby." Possibly he may have had in his mind this passage of 
 the Battle of the Books. 
 
 Page 52, Une 12. — Assigned to his repose. A very free use of the 
 verb. The phrase means, given up to his repose, i,e. , left to go to 
 sleep. 
 
NOTES. 75 
 
 Page 52, line 13. — Oldham. A satirical poet of Dryden's school. 
 Hallam says that he " ranks, perhaps, next to Dryden ; he is 
 spirited and pointed, but his versification is too negligent, and his 
 subjects temporary." 
 
 Page 52, line 14. — Afra the Amazon is Mrs. Afra Behn, who 
 lived in the time of the -Restoration, and was celebrated for her 
 licentious plays and romances. She is the Camilla of the Battle 
 of the Books, which, of course, suggests the epithet, "light of 
 foot." See jSneid, xi., 718 : — 
 
 " Pernicibus ignea plantis 
 Transit equum cursu " — , 
 
 where the Amazon Camilla outstrips a horse in speed. 
 
 Page 52, line 14. — Pindar . . • never advancing in a direct 
 line, but wheeling with incredible agility and force. This is a 
 reference to the peculiar construction of the Pindaric Odes. 
 
 Page 52, line 17. — Cowley aimed at Pindar's style in certain 
 odes, which he termed Pindariques. These poems were, however, 
 not successful. Cowley's reputation as a poet is founded chiefly on 
 -^is love lyrics, which Swift refers to as a "shield given him by 
 Venus." In early life Swift himself attempted Pindarics, which 
 were a signal failure. 
 
 Page 52, line 25. — So large and weighty that scarce a dozen 
 cavaliers, as cavaliers are in our degenerate days, could raise it. 
 Compare the stone which Diomedes hurls at ^neas, so great that 
 " two men, such as men now are, could not carry it, but he hurled 
 it with ease, unaided." 
 
 " 8 oi Siio 7' &SpE (p^poiev, 
 Otot vdv ^poToi elff'' 6 5^ fiLV p^a TrdXXe /cai olos.'' 
 
 Iliad, v., 303. 
 
 Page 53, line 2. — ^The flight of Cowley, and his petition to Pindar, 
 are copied from the 22nd book of the Iliad, where Hector flees 
 from Achilles thrice round Troy, and before fighting begs him to 
 restore his body tp Priam if he should fall. This Achilles refuses 
 with disdain, saying, "Thee the dogs and birds shall tear in vile 
 fashion" (//., xxii., 335). For Swift's expression, "thefowls ofthe 
 air and the beasts of the field," cf. 1 Samuel xvii. 44, where 
 Goliath says to David, " Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to 
 the fowls ofthe air, and to the beasts ofthe field." 
 
 Pag? 53) line ?!• — Twain is from the A.-S., twegen, the medial 
 " g " dropping out, as is often the case (cf.fagen, fain, and fager, fair). 
 " Twegen" is the masculine form, and gives us twain ; the word 
 "two " is from twa, the fem. and neut. form of the A.-S. numeral. 
 
 Page 53, line 16. — Amaranth should b? spelled (according to 
 derivation, L., amarantus ; Gr., d/td/iaj'Tos, unfading) amarant. 
 
76 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 Page 53) line ^T- — T/ie leather grew round and soft. We must 
 remember that (as Swift says in his Introduction) when CowTey^is 
 spoken of, the man Cowley is not meant, but the book of Cowley's 
 works. Hence the allusion to Jhe leather binding. The battle is 
 
 , literally a battle of the books, although~Swift seems to forget this 
 when speaking of Dryden's head in the helmet that was too large 
 
 t, for him. See the Preface of the Bookseller to the Reader, printed at 
 the commencement of the Battle of the Books. 
 
 Page S3, line 19. — It became a dove. — So Procne is changed into 
 a swallow, Philomela to a nightingale, and Tereus to a hoopoe. 
 Ovid, Met., vi., 9 and 10. 
 
 Page 54, line i. — Incoherent, not properly fixed together, or 
 possibly it may mean varying in texture, incongruous. 
 
 Page 54, line 2. — The sound of it was loud and dry. From 
 Homer — 
 
 " K6pv6es 5* dfi^ aOov direw 
 BaWdfiercu fivXdKeffai, Kal dtrTides d/iipaXieffffai..'' 
 
 " On all hands their helmets rang dry." 
 
 Iliad, xii., 160. 
 
 Page 54, line 3. — Etesian wind, a periodical wind, such as 
 the iiortherly winds in Greece, which blew for forty days after the 
 rising of the Dog-star (?tos, a year). 
 
 Page 45, line 9. — Atrametitous, inky (Lat., atramentum, ink). 
 
 Page 54, line 15. — The sum of things. Compare the Latin — 
 " Quo res summa loco, Panthu ? Quam prendimus arcem.'' 
 
 Virgil, ^neid, ii., 322. 
 
 Page 54, line l5. — The description of Bentley's personal appear- 
 ance and railing speech is in imitation of Homer's Thersites in the 
 second Book of the Iliad. He is represented as skilled in the 
 use of scurrilous language, lame of one foot, and having one shoulder 
 higher than the other. He scoffs at Agamemnon, and is rebuked by 
 Ulysses, much as Bentley is rebuked by Scaliger. Thersites' speech 
 in Homer ends with a reference to holding captured booty, and must 
 have suggested the conclusion of Bentley's speech in the text. 
 
 Page 54, line 19. — The generals kept him for his talent of railing, 
 A reference to the aid given by Bentley to Wotton in the second 
 edition of the Dissertation on Ancient and Modem Learning. 
 
 Page 54, line 30. — Loggerheads, dunces. 
 
NOTES. 77 
 
 Page 55, line 6. — Scaliger, a celebrated scholar, contemporary 
 with Erasmus. 
 
 P^gs 55, line II. — Thy study of humanity more inhuman. 
 Another reference to the Librarian's " singular humanity." (See 
 Introduction^ The word " humanity " has still in Scotland its old 
 sense — the " humanities," including Latin, Greek, rhetoric, poetry, 
 and grammatical studies. 
 
 P^ge 55, line 15. — Finished thee a pedant, i.e., made thee a 
 finished pedant. 
 
 Page 5S)1™6 28. — Aldrovandus, a naturalist of Bologna (d. 1605). 
 
 Page 55, line v^.— On the side,of the declining sun, i.e., on the 
 west side. 
 
 Page 56, line 5. — Nor dare they bark, though much provoked at 
 her refulgent visage. Dogs and wolves were supposed to bark at 
 the moon. Cf. Julius Cossar :— 
 
 " I'd rather be a dog, and bay the moon 
 Than such a Roman." 
 
 Act iv., Sc. iii. 
 And As You Like It : — 
 
 " The howling of Irish wolves against the moon." 
 
 Act v., Sc. ii. 
 
 Page 56, line 18. — In his van Confusion and Amase, while 
 Horror and Affright brought up the rear. Cf. Gray — 
 
 " Amazement in his van, with Flight combined 
 And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind." 
 
 The Bard. 
 
 , Page 56, line 22. — The blow aimed by Bentley at Phalaris was 
 the Dissertation written by the former disproving the authenticity of 
 the so-called Letters of Phalaris, and published with Wotton's 
 Reflections. 
 
 Page 56, line 29. — Roaring in his bull. A brazen bull fashioned 
 by the artist Perillus. Into this was thrust any person whom 
 Phalaris thought objectionable ; and then a fire was lighted beneath. 
 The victim was thus roasted to death, the mouth of the bull being 
 so fashioned that the cries of the person within resembled bel- 
 lowings. 
 
 Page 56, line 31, — A wild ass broke loose, and ran about 
 trampling and kicking their faces. Bentley, in speaking of a mis- 
 translation by Boyle, said : " This puts me in mind of the Greek 
 proverb, ' that Leucon carries one thing, and his ass another' " — 
 which Boyle resented highly, complaining that Bentley had called 
 him an ass. 
 
78 BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. 
 
 Page 56, line 33. — Seized on both their armours. In mediasval 
 romances, it was not an uncommon thing for a knight to fall asleep 
 in a forest, having previously laid aside his armour, vi^hich was of 
 course removed by his enemy, in order that the author of the tale 
 might display his ingenuity in extricating his hero from the 
 difficulty. 
 
 Page 57, line 5. — A fountain, called Helicon. Helicon is not a 
 fountain, but a mountain. In the poem called An Epitaph, por- 
 tions of which I have quoted above, the same mistake occurs : — 
 " Making their tears their Helicon." 
 
 Page 57, line 2Z. — One he could not distinguish. Swift probably 
 refers to himself here ; his attack on Bentley was anonymous. 
 
 Page 58, line 4. — / may return in safety and triumph laden with 
 his spoils. The first part of his prayer the gods granted, but the rest 
 by a perverse wind, S'c. 
 
 Cf. Homer— 
 
 " 'KaKi]Si\% fioi iirara 8ois iirl v^as Ikoito 
 Tciixcci Te fto Tram KoX dyxcfiAxoiS irdpourw. 
 "fis lipar' eixS/J^evor rod S' IxXue firirUra Zeis 
 T<fi S' Irepov fJiiv ISaxe varfip, Hepov S' dv4vevffe." 
 
 niad, xvi., 249. 
 And Virgil — 
 
 " Audiit, et voti Phcebus succedere partem 
 Mente dedit ; partem volucres dispersit in auras." 
 
 ySneid, xi., 794. 
 
 Page 59, line 6.— His lover Boyle. For " lover " in the sense of 
 ''friend," cf. "Friends, countrymen, and lovers." — fulitis Casar. 
 
 Page 59, line 14. — As a woman that gains a painful livelihood by 
 spinning, Sfc. Cf. — 
 
 "'A\X' ^x"" ^'^'^f TdtXai'Ta 7U>'7; xepvr(n% dXijffrjs 
 "H re araBpiv fx"^"'"' '^"■^ elpiov, dpi^ls dviXxei. 
 'lo-dfouo-'." 
 
 Iliad, xii., 434. 
 
 Page 60, line 7. — foined in their lives ; joined in their deaths. A 
 reference to the joint handiwork of Wotton and Bentley in the 
 Reflections. 
 
 C W. GiBBS, Printer, 18 Wicklow Street, Dublin.