The Project
Gutenberg eBook, The Battle of the Books, by Jonathan Swift,
Edited by
Henry Morley
This eBook is
for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy
it, give it away or
re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this
eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The
Battle of the Books
and Other Short Pieces
Author:
Jonathan Swift
Editor: Henry
Morley
Release Date:
January 15, 2007 [eBook #623]
Language:
English
Character set
encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF
THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS***
THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS
AND OTHER SHORT PIECES.
AND OTHER SHORT PIECES.
by
JONATHAN SWIFT.
JONATHAN SWIFT.
CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
london, paris, new york & melbourne.
1886.
london, paris, new york & melbourne.
1886.
INTRODUCTION.
Jonathan Swift
was born in 1667, on the 30th of November. His father was a Jonathan
Swift, sixth of the ten sons of the Rev. Thomas Swift, vicar of Goodrich, near
Ross, in Herefordshire, who had married Elizabeth Dryden, niece to the poet
Dryden’s grandfather. Jonathan Swift married, at Leicester, Abigail
Erick, or Herrick, who was of the family that had given to England Robert
Herrick, the poet. As their eldest brother, Godwin, was prospering in
Ireland, four other Swifts, Dryden, William, Jonathan, and Adam, all in turn
found their way to Dublin. Jonathan was admitted an attorney of the
King’s Inns, Dublin, and was appointed by the Benchers to the office of Steward
of the King’s Inns, in January, 1666. He died in April, 1667, leaving his
widow with an infant daughter, Jane, and an unborn child.
Swift was born
in Dublin seven months after his father’s death. His mother after a time
returned to her own family, in Leicester, and the child was added to the
household of his uncle, Godwin Swift, who, by his four wives, became father to
ten sons of his own and four daughters. Godwin Swift sent his nephew to
Kilkenny School, where he had William Congreve among his schoolfellows. In
April, 1782, Swift was entered at Trinity College as pensioner, together with
his cousin Thomas, son of his uncle Thomas. That cousin Thomas afterwards
became rector of Puttenham, in Surrey. Jonathan Swift graduated as B.A.
at Dublin, in February, 1686, and remained in Trinity College for another three
years. He was ready to proceed to M.A. when his uncle Godwin became
insane. The troubles of 1689 also caused the closing of the University,
and Jonathan Swift went to Leicester, where mother and son took counsel
together as to future possibilities of life.
The retired
statesman, Sir William Temple, at Moor Park, near Farnham, in Surrey, was in
highest esteem with the new King and the leaders of the Revolution. His
father, as Master of the Irish Rolls, had been a friend of Godwin Swift’s, and
with his wife Swift’s mother could claim cousinship. After some months,
therefore, at Leicester, Jonathan Swift, aged twenty-two, went to Moor Park,
and entered Sir William Temple’s household, doing service with the expectation
of advancement through his influence. The advancement he desired was in
the Church. When Swift went to Moor Park he found in its household a
child six or seven years old, daughter to Mrs. Johnson, who was trusted servant
and companion to Lady Gifford, Sir William Temple’s sister. With this
little Esther, aged seven, Swift, aged twenty-two, became a playfellow and
helper in her studies. He broke his English for her into what he called
their “little language,” that was part of the same playful kindliness, and
passed into their after-life. In July, 1692, with Sir William Temple’s
help, Jonathan Swift commenced M.A. in Oxford, as of Hart Hall. In 1694,
Swift’s ambition having been thwarted by an offer of a clerkship, of £120 a
year, in the Irish Rolls, he broke from Sir William Temple, took orders, and
obtained, through other influence, in January, 1695, the small prebendary of
Kilroot, in the north of Ireland. He was there for about a year.
Close by, in Belfast, was an old college friend, named Waring, who had a
sister. Swift was captivated by Miss Waring, called her Varina, and would
have become engaged to marry her if she had not flinched from engagement with a
young clergyman whose income was but a hundred a year.
But Sir
William Temple had missed Jonathan Swift from Moor Park. Differences were
forgotten, and Swift, at his wish, went back. This was in 1696, when his
little pupil, Esther Johnson, was fifteen. Swift said of her, “I knew her
from six years old, and had some share in her education, by directing what
books she should read, and perpetually instructing her in the principles of
honour and virtue, from which she never swerved in any one action or moment of
her life. She was sickly from her childhood until about the age of fifteen;
but then grew into perfect health, and was then looked upon as one of the most
beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in London, only a little too
fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and every feature of her face in
perfection.” This was the Stella of Swift’s after-life, the one woman to
whom his whole love was given. But side by side with the slow growth of
his knowledge of all she was for him, was the slow growth of his conviction
that attacks of giddiness and deafness, which first came when he was twenty,
and recurred at times throughout his life, were signs to be associated with
that which he regarded as the curse upon his life. His end would be like
his uncle Godwin’s. It was a curse transmissible to children, but if he desired
to keep the influence his genius gave him, he could not tell the world why he
refused to marry. Only to Stella, who remained unmarried for his sake,
and gave her life to him, could all be known.
Returned to Moor Park, Swift wrote, in 1697, the “Battle of the Books,” as well as the “Tale of the Tub,” with which it was published seven years afterwards, in 1704. Perrault and others had been battling in France over the relative merits of Ancient and Modern Writers. The debate had spread to England. On behalf of the Ancients, stress was laid by Temple on the letters of Phalaris, tyrant of Agrigentum. Wotton replied to Sir William for the Moderns. The Hon. Charles Boyle, of Christ Church, published a new edition of the Epistles of Phalaris, with translation of the Greek text into Latin. Dr. Bentley, the King’s Librarian, published a “Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris,” denying their value, and arguing that Phalaris did not write them. Christ Church replied through Charles Boyle, with “Dr. Bentley’s Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris examined.” Swift entered into the war with a light heart, and matched the Ancients in defending them for the amusement of his patron. His incidental argument between the Spider and the Bee has provided a catch-phrase, “Sweetness and Light,” to a combatant of later times.
Sir William
Temple died on the 27th of January, 1699. Swift then became chaplain to
Lord Berkeley in Dublin Castle, and it was as a little surprise to Lady
Berkeley, who liked him to read to her Robert Boyle’s “Meditations,” that Swift
wrote the “Meditation on a Broomstick.” In February, 1700, he obtained
from Lord Berkeley the vicarage of Laracor with the living of Rathbeggan, also
in the diocese of Meath. In the beginning of 1701 Esther Johnson, to whom
Sir William Temple had bequeathed a leasehold farm in Wicklow, came with an
elder friend, Miss Dingley, and settled in Laracor to be near Swift.
During one of the visits to London, made from Laracor, Swift attacked the false
pretensions of astrologers by that prediction of the death of Mr. Partridge, a prophetic
almanac maker, of which he described the Accomplishment so clearly that
Partridge had much ado to get credit for being alive.
The lines
addressed to Stella speak for themselves. “Cadenus and Vanessa” was meant
as polite and courteous admonition to Miss Hester Van Homrigh, a young lady in
whom green-sickness seems to have produced devotion to Swift in forms that
embarrassed him, and with which he did not well know how to deal.
H. M.
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 Æsop and Phalaris for authors,
whom Sir William Temple had, in the essay before mentioned, 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 provocation. At length,
there appearing no end of the quarrel, our author tells us that the BOOKS in
St. 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 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 persons 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 certain
sheets of paper bound up in leather, containing in print the works of the said
poet: and so of the rest.
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.
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 Æsop 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 Æsop: 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 Rhætia. 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.
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 Æsculapius 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.
. . . . 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 Æsculapius 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.
. . . . Hiatus valde de-
. . . . flendus in MS.
*
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen