book referred to by Wotton is generally agreed to be de Callière's Histoire poétique de la guerre nouvellement déclarée entre les Anciens et les Modernes (Paris, 1688). In the Apology already referred to, Swift indignantly denied that he had borrowed so much as a hint from any one.[1] The parallels between the Battle and de Callière's book are very slight: Swift speaks of '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' . . . ; in de Callière's book we are told that some of the French authors thought of Balzac 'que tous les discours de cet auteur ressemblaient à de la crème fouettée, qui a beaucoup d'apparence et peu de substance.' Further, in both books the Ancients and Moderns occupy each one peak of the mountain Parnassus. But such resemblances may perfectly well be accidental.
In 1714, Boyer, in his life of Sir William Temple,[2] said that Swift took the hint for the Battle from 'an allegorical novel written in French by Monsieur de Furetière,' and in a footnote he gives the title: Nouvelle allégorique des derniers troubles arrivés au
