The Battle of the Books and Other Short Pieces
THE PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.
SATIRE is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally 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 few are
offended with it. But, if it should happen otherwise, the danger
is not great; and I have learned from long experience never to
apprehend 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 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 impertinence, and he will find no new supply. Wit without
knowledge being 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.
CHAPTER I - 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 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 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.
