THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS
Ch. 1: Ancient and Modern Books
A FULL AND TRUE
ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE FOUGHT LAST FRIDAY BETWEEN THE ANCIENT AND THE MODERN
BOOKS IN SAINT JAMES'S LIBRARY.
Whoever examines,
with due circumspection, into the annual records of time, will find it remarked
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, 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 republic of dogs, 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 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 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 heart-burning, 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 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 scheme, 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 form
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 either faction, and the pretensions somewhere or
other so exorbitant, as not to admit the least overtures of accommodation. This
quarrel first began, as I have heard it affirmed by an old dweller in the
neighbourhood, 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 seems,
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, complaining of a
great nuisance; how the height of that part of Parnassus quite spoiled the
prospect of theirs, especially towards the east; and therefore, to avoid a war,
offered them the choice of this alternative, either that the Ancients would
please to remove themselves and their effects down to the lower summit, which
the Moderns would graciously surrender to them, and advance 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 own free grace, to so
near a neighbourhood. That, as to their own seat, they were aborigines of it,
and therefore 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 it if they did or
did not 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 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, maintained on the
one part by resolution, and by the courage of certain leaders and allies; but,
on the other, by the 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
understood, 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 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 combatants. 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 content to be at the same
expense, to keep itself in countenance (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 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 up. They are known to the world under several names; as
disputes, arguments, rejoinders, brief considerations, answers, replies,
remarks, reflections, objections, confutations. For a very few days they are
fixed up all in public places, either by themselves or their representatives,
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
assigned them, and thenceforth begin to be called books of controversy.
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 believe it is with libraries as
with other cemeteries, where some philosophers affirm that a certain spirit,
which they callbrutum 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 restless spirit haunts over
every book, till dust or worms 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 out, they were carried to a certain
library, and had lodgings appointed them; 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 turn him out from his ancient station among
the divines, 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 hold fast with a chain.
By this
expedient, the public peace of libraries might certainly have been preserved if
a new species of controversial books had not arisen of late years, instinct
with a more malignant spirit, from the war above mentioned 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 malignity might be employed among
themselves. And it seems I was neither an ill prophet nor an ill counsellor;
for it was nothing else but the neglect of this 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 qualifications requisite in an
historian, and retained by neither party, have resolved to comply with the
urgent importunity of my friends, by writing down a full impartial account
thereof.
The guardian of
the regal library, a person of great valour, but chiefly renowned for his
humanity, had been a fierce champion for the Moderns, and, in an engagement
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 them to mount, but, in reducing to practice,
discover a mighty pressure about their posteriors and their heels. Having thus
failed in his 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;
when, at the same time, whatever 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 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 Moderns into the keeper's eyes. Others affirmed he had a humour to
pick the worms out of the schoolmen, and swallow 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 maintained 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 to mistake and clap
Descartes next to Aristotle, poor Plato had got between Hobbes and the Seven
Wise Masters, 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, and brought back with him a list of their forces, in all,
fifty 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 extremely high; hot words passed on both sides,
and ill blood was plentifully bred. Here a solitary Ancient, squeezed up among
a whole shelf of Moderns, offered fairly to dispute the case, and to prove by
manifest reason that the priority was due to them from long possession, 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 Ancients 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 the two.
As for any obligations they owed to the Ancients, they renounced them all.
"It is true," said they, "we are informed some few of our party
have been so mean as to borrow their subsistence from you, but the rest,
infinitely the greater number (and especially we French and 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 forging, and our clothes of our own cutting out and
sewing." Plato was by chance up on the next shelf, and observing those
that spoke 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 underneath, he laughed loud, and in his pleasant way swore, 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 precedency, talked so loud of coming to a battle,
that Sir William Temple happened to overhear them, and gave immediate
intelligence to the Ancients, who thereupon drew up their scattered troops
together, resolving to act upon the defensive; upon which, several of the
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 magnitude
by the destruction of infinite numbers of flies, whose spoils lay scattered
before the gates of his palace, like human bones before the cave of some giant.
The avenues to his castle were guarded with turnpikes and palisadoes, all after
the modern way of fortification. 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 or 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
conduct thither a wandering bee, to whose curiosity a broken pane in the glass
had discovered itself, and in he went, where, expatiating a while, he at last
happened to alight upon one of the outward walls of the spider'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 dissolution, or else that Beelzebub, with all his
legions, was come to revenge the death of many thousands of his 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, posted 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 wit's end; he stormed and
swore like a madman, and swelled till he was ready to burst. At length, casting
his eye upon the bee, and wisely gathering causes from events (for they know
each other by sight), "A plague split you," said he; "is it you,
with a vengeance, that have made this litter here; could not you look before
you, and be d---d? Do you think I have nothing else 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 disposed 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," replied 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 better manners."
"I 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 dispute." At this the spider, having swelled himself into 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 conviction.
"Not to
disparage myself," said he, "by the comparison with such a rascal,
what art thou but a vagabond without house or home, without stock or
inheritance? born to no possession of your own, but a pair of wings 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 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 would never have bestowed on
me two such gifts without 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 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 lesson 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 inherent portion
of dirt does not fall 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 nobler being of the two,
that which, by a lazy contemplation of four inches round, by an overweening
pride, feeding, and engendering on itself, turns all into excrement 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 distinction
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 what would be
the issue; which was not long undetermined: for the bee, grown impatient at so
much loss of time, fled straight away to a bed of roses, without 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 AEsop broke silence first. He had been of late most
barbarously treated by a strange effect of the regent's humanity, who had torn
off his title-page, sorely defaced one half 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 ass, the regent mistook him for a
Modern; by which means he had time and opportunity 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 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 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 argument pro and con. It is but to adjust the reasonings of
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 Moderns and us. For pray, gentlemen,
was ever anything so modern as the spider 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 improvement 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 inventions
of the Moderns by what they have produced, 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 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 us, the Ancients, we are content with the bee, to
pretend to nothing of our own beyond our wings and our voice: that is to say,
our flights and our language. For the 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 till
our hives with honey and wax; thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of
things, which are sweetness and light."
It is wonderful
to conceive the tumult arisen among the books upon the close of this long
descant of AEsop: both parties took the hint, and heightened their animosities
so on a sudden, that they resolved it should come to a battle. Immediately the
two main bodies withdrew, under their several ensigns, to the farther parts 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. The difference was greatest among
the horse, where every private trooper pretended to the chief command, from
Tasso and Milton to Dryden and Wither. The light-horse were commanded by Cowley
and Despreaux. There came the bowmen under their valiant leaders, 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 from the snowy mountains of Rhaetia. There came
a vast body of dragoons, of different nations, under the leading of Harvey,
their great aga: part armed with 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 engineers were commanded by Regiomontanus and Wilkins.
The rest was a confused multitude, led by Scotus, 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; Homer led the horse, and Pindar the
light-horse; Euclid was chief engineer; Plato and Aristotle commanded the
bowmen; Herodotus and Livy the foot; Hippocrates, the dragoons; the allies, led
by Vossius and 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 them; a bloody battle just impendent between
two mighty armies of ancient and modern creatures, called books, wherein the
celestial interest was but too deeply concerned. Momus, the patron of the
Moderns, made 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 commanded the Book of Fate to be laid before him.
Immediately were brought by Mercury three large volumes in folio, containing
memoirs of all things past, present, and to come. The clasps were of silver
double gilt, the covers of celestial turkey leather, and the paper such as here
on earth might pass almost for vellum. Jupiter, having silently read the
decree, would communicate 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: those 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 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
immediately down to the pinnacle of the regal library, and consulting a few
minutes, entered unseen, 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 to his children the Moderns, bent his flight to the region of a
malignant deity called Criticism. She dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain in
Nova Zembla; there Momus found her extended in her den, upon the spoils of
numberless volumes, half devoured. At her right hand sat 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 head-strong, yet giddy and perpetually turning. About
her played her children, Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness,
Pedantry, and Ill-manners. The goddess 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 diminish
it. "Goddess," said Momus, "can you sit idly 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 divinities? Haste, therefore, to the
British Isle, and, if possible, prevent their destruction; while I make factions
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. Up she rose in a rage, and, as it is the form on such
occasions, began a soliloquy: "It is I" (said she) "who give
wisdom to infants and idiots; by me children grow wiser than their parents, by
me beaux become politicians, and schoolboys judges of philosophy; by me
sophisters debate and conclude upon the depths of knowledge; and coffee-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? But come, my aged parent, and you, my children dear, and thou, my
beauteous sister; let us ascend my chariot, and haste to assist our devout
Moderns, who are now sacrificing to us a hecatomb, as I perceive by that
grateful smell which from thence reaches my nostrils."
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 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 her thoughts and move in her breast: for
at the head of a troup of Modern bowmen she cast her eyes upon her son Wotton,
to whom the fates had assigned a very 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 to change her shape, for fear the divinity of her countenance might
dazzle his mortal sight and overcharge the rest of his senses. She therefore
gathered up her person into an octavo compass: her body grow white and arid,
and split in pieces with dryness; the thick turned into pasteboard, and the
thin into paper; 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 Moderns,
indistinguishable in shape and dress from the divine Bentley, Wotton's dearest
friend. "Brave Wotton," said the goddess, "why do our 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. 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 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 advanced 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 . . . Hic pauca . . . . desunt They bore the wounded aga on their
shields to his chariot . . . Desunt .
. . nonnulla.
. . .
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 pierced the leather and 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 . . . . hic
in MS. . . . . . . . . when
Homer appeared at the head of the cavalry, mounted on a furious horse, with
difficulty managed by the rider himself, but which no other mortal durst
approach; he rode among the enemy's 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 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 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 Apollo 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 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 now approached within the throw of a lance, when the
stranger desired a parley, and, lifting up the visor of his helmet, a face
hardly appeared from within which, after a pause, was known for that of the
renowned Dryden. 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
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 iron. However, this glittering armour became the Modern yet worsen 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 . . . . in
MS. Lucan appeared upon a
fiery horse of admirable shape, but headstrong, bearing the rider where he list
over the field; he made a mighty slaughter among the enemy's horse; which
destruction to stop, Blackmore, a famous Modern (but one of the mercenaries),
strenuously opposed 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 AEsculapius came unseen and turned off the point. "Brave Modern,"
said 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, but present gifts to each other." Lucan then bestowed on
the Modern a pair of spurs, and Blackmore gave Lucan a bridle. . . . Pauca
desunt. . . . . . . . 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 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 Pindar 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 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 Cowley 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, that 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; nor could the Modern have avoided present death if he
had not luckily opposed the shield that had been given him by Venus. And now
both heroes drew their swords; but the Modern was so aghast and disordered that
he knew not 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 hand in
the posture of a suppliant, "Godlike Pindar," said he, "spare my
life, and possess my horse, with these arms, beside the ransom 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, 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
frighted 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 grow 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. . . . . . . . Hiatus valde de- . . . . flendus
in MS.
