casion, 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 every body'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 hereof.
The guardian of the regal library, a person of great valour, but chiefly renowned for his humanity[1], 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 superiour 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 extreme subject; for
- ↑ The honourable Mr. Boyle, in the preface to his edition of Phalaris, says, he was refused a manuscript by the library-keeper, pro solita humanitate suâ.
Ibid. Doctor Bentley was then library-keeper: the two ancients were Phalaris and Æsop.
