Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/265

But the issue or events of this war, are not so easy to conjecture at^[1]: 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 in^[2] 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

1. Are not so easy to conjecture at' — is a strange impropriety of speech: the sentence would run much better thus. 'But it is not so easy to conjecture what will be the issue or events of this war.'
2. For 'in' read 'into.'