The Battle of the Books; with selections from the literature of the Phalaris controversy/Introduction

by Jonathan Swift

INTRODUCTION^[1]

The Ancient and Modern Learning Controversy

The Battle of the Books is one of a large number of books and pamphlets written towards the end of the seventeenth century when both in England and in France men were eagerly debating whether the genius and achievements of their contemporaries or immediate predecessors were or were not greater than those of the ancients. It would be tedious and useless to tell again the history of the quarrel^[2] farther than is necessary to explain the circumstances under which Swift wrote his book. This account of the quarrel in France, accordingly, begins at that point from which Sir William Temple appears to have known of it. But it must be remembered that the controversy was in no sense a new one. The reader of Lucretius or Vergil, of Homer or Aristophanes, finds that even in the days of these writers, laments were heard of the degeneracy in physical strength, in mental power, in morality, of the men of their time: and from the time of Horace to the present day,^[3] men have always been found to preach the doctrine that mankind, week by week, and month by month, is becoming more and more unworthy of the glorious past. In the present instance the quarrel was chiefly concerned with the literary and scientific attainments of the ancients and moderns, though it was impossible that reference should not be made to other subjects. It was said, for example, that the introduction of Christianity gave the moderns great advantages over the ancients, and one Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, an official at the court of Louis XIV, tried to prove that Christian stories were more suited for poetical treatment than the fictions which formed the subject-matter of the epics of Greece and Rome. Not content with the peaceable possession of his convictions, Desmarets wrote a number of poems, intended, by their pathos and sublimity, to demonstrate the truth of his theories; of the existence of which poems (to borrow Swift's phrase) the world has ever since been pleased to make a profound secret, so that their usefulness has been much circumscribed. After the death of Desmarets his ideas were taken up and elaborated by Charles Perrault.

 

Perrault and Fontenelle

On the 27th of January, 1687, at a meeting of the French Academy called to celebrate the recovery of Louis XIV from a serious illness, Perrault recited a poem, which he had written for the occasion, called Le Stiècle de Louis le Grand. He maintained in it that the works of the ancients were not perfect: that men had not degenerated: that in many ways the moderns were greater than the ancients, for whom nevertheless it was only fitting that they should feel the greatest reverence. The audience was divided. Some received the reading of the poem with applause: others, chief among them Boileau, regarded it as a disgrace to the Academy. Some one pointed out that Perrault had omitted Boileau's name from his poem, although he mentioned a large number of other French authors as the equals in genius of the ancients. Angered at the wrong done to his favourite authors, Boileau wrote bitterly against Perrault and his friends, and furious war raged between the advocates of the ancients and the advocates of the moderns.

A year before Perrault's poem was read, Fontenelle, in his Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes (1686), had thrown out certain disrespectful insinuations touching the ancients, and a year after Perrault's poem had convulsed literary France, he again set forward his views in his Poésies Pastorales: Avec un Traité sur la Nature de l'Eglogue, et une Digression sur les Anciens et [sur] les Modernes (1688). In the Traité Fontenelle examines in some detail the pastoral poems of Vergil, of Theocritus, and of other pastoral poets, and comes to the conclusion 'entre la grossièreté ordinaire des bergers de Théocrite, et le trop d'esprit de la plupart de nos bergers modernes, il y a un milieu à tenir.' His own pastorals, printed in the same volume, are intended to show where the via media lies. The Digression deals with the whole dispute. At the outset Fontenelle declares that the whole question comes only to this: were the trees which grew formerly finer than those we have now? If they were, Nature has evidently become enfeebled, and in these later ages we cannot hope to equal the works of the ancients: if they were not, it is clear that Nature is still the same, and men, too, must be as great as ever they were, and capable of producing works as fine as those of Homer or Plato or Demosthenes. To say that the ancients have made all the greatest discoveries proves nothing: the ancients made these discoveries because they lived before us, not because of their greater genius. The life of the world is the life of one man: a cultivated man now, has all the culture of the ages that went before him: so that like a being which has lived from the beginning of the world until the present day, having been once a child, thinking only of the most pressing needs of life, and then a youth, succeeding in the things of the imagination and beginning to reason for himself, mankind has become what it is now, a race reasoning with greater power and insight than ever before. But unlike the being to whom Fontenelle has compared it, the human race will never fall into dotage and lose its earlier powers—'les hommes ne degenereront jamais!' Such are some of the arguments Fontenelle advances.

In the year in which Fontenelle's Poésies Pastorales appeared, Perrault began issuing his Parallèles des Anciens et des Modernes (1688-1696), which dealt at large with the comparative claims of the ancients and moderns in literature and the arts. Only one or two of his arguments are interesting in connection with the Battle of the Books, and these are mentioned in the notes to this volume.

 

Temple's Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning (1690)

In 1690^[4] Sir William Temple published the second part of his Miscellanea. It consisted of four Essays: I. Upon ancient and modern learning, II. Upon the gardens of Epicurus, III. Upon heroic virtue, IV. Upon poetry. The first of them introduced into England the quarrel raging in France. It is true that for many years^[5] a controversy on the question had been going on in England, but it had not attracted general attention. Sir William Temple was one of the best-known men in England, and the public paid to his utterances that peculiar deference which is shown to a popular statesman when he leaves politics and turns to a subject of which he is profoundly ignorant. The greater part of his Essay is given in the Appendix to this volume (pp. 50–76), and the reader can judge its merits for himself. One paragraph in it involved Temple in a bitter dispute. There existed, among a large number of other such compositions, a series of 148 letters supposed to have been written by Phalaris, 'a shadowy figure in the early legends of ancient Sicily.' Of Phalaris the most important thing known is that he was wont to roast to death in a brazen bull those persons who incurred his displeasure. There is not the slightest doubt that the Epistles attributed to him were spurious compositions, written hundreds of years after his death: but when Temple wrote some eminent scholars regarded them as genuine.

Temple may have read the Epistles in one of the Latin translations enumerated in Boyle's Preface (see pp. 93 and 305–8), or in the English translation made by one W. D. and published in 1634: that he could not have read them in the Greek in which they were written, seems quite certain. Nevertheless, in the paragraph of his Essay just referred to, writing as one who had moved as an equal among the greatest men of his time, and as one who had corresponded with kings, Temple asserted that the Epistles must be genuine, because no forger could possibly have imitated so perfectly the thoughts and language of a tyrant. By so choosing his ground Temple left himself no way of escape in case the Epistles should be proved spurious. Later he would have been happier if he had not written with such a show of conviction. For the time, however, all went well. His Essay was received with applause, and he had no suspicion that any hand would be raised against him.

 

Charles Boyle

Charles Boyle (grand-nephew of Robert Boyle, the great scientist), a boy of seventeen, was in 1693 at Christ Church, Oxford. He seems to have been clever, and was very much liked. Dr Aldrich, then Dean of Christ Church, was, we are told, in the habit of asking his best pupils to edit some classical author. In 1693, no doubt owing to Temple's Essay, he asked Boyle to prepare an edition of the Epistles of Phalaris. It was not to be expected that a boy of Boyle's age should be able to prepare, unaided, an edition of a Greek author; and it must have been understood in academic circles that Aldrich's young men relied upon their tutors for the learning to be put into their books: but no doubt many men resented the fraud of issuing, in the name of a boy, the work of his masters. During 1693 and 1694 Boyle worked at his edition.

 

Wotton's 'Reflections' (1694)

Meanwhile an opponent to Sir William Temple's views was writing a book to demonstrate the folly of belittling the moderns in order to increase the reputation of the ancients. William Wotton had as a child exhibited the most wonderful precocity: at the age of six he knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; at ten he entered Cambridge; and at thirteen he obtained his degree. When Temple's Essay appeared he was about twenty-four years old. He proceeded to write a book in which he compared the achievements of the ancients and moderns in Moral and Political Knowledge, in Eloquence and Poetry, in Grammar, in Architecture, Statuary, and Painting, in Logic and Metaphysics, in Geometry and Arithmetic, in Chemistry, in Anatomy, in Natural History, in Astronomy and Optics, in Music, in Physic, in Philology, and in Theology; and he wrote besides chapters on the learning of Pythagoras and the most ancient philosophers of Greece, on the History, Geometry, Natural Philosophy, Medicine, and Alchemy of the Ancient Egyptians, and on the learning of the Ancient Chaldæans and Arabians.

The book appeared in 1694, when Wotton was twenty-eight years old, and was called Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning. Although its style was not exhilarating, the book was quite readable, and it disposed decisively of the claims of the ancients in learning, though not of course in literature and the fine arts. Wotton's tone in speaking of Sir William Temple is extremely civil, though one detects here and there a suspicion of contempt, but he destroyed utterly the fabric of his vision. Temple had not thought that any one would dare to answer him, still less that any one would refute him, and Wotton's book made him exceedingly angry. He was sufficiently mortified. Swift said later, at being called the adversary of Wotton.^[6] But worse things were to come.

 

Boyle's 'Phalaris' (1695)

In the course of his work upon Phalaris (which does not appear to have been very arduous) Boyle (or his tutors) wished to obtain the readings of a manuscript copy of the Epistles of Phalaris which was in the Royal Library at St. James's Palace. Accordingly in July or August 1693 he instructed his book-seller Thomas Bennet, who lived at the sign of the Half-Moon, in St. Paul's Churchyard, to obtain the manuscript for him. The Librarian (or Library-keeper as he was called) at St. James's was at this moment Henri Justel,^[7] but Bennet does not seem to have made any application to him.^[8]

He knew as a customer (he says himself 'as a friend') Richard Bentley, who in the previous year (1692) had delivered in St. Martin's Church the first course of Boyle Lectures (founded by the great-uncle of Charles Boyle), and who had written in 1690 a Latin Letter to Dr Mill on the Chronicle of Malelas, which showed him to be one of the greatest classical scholars in England. There were rumours that Justel was about to resign his post and that Bentley would take his place. Accordingly Bennet asked Bentley if he would get the MS. for him, and Bentley seems to have promised to do so. It is clear that Boyle ought not to have expected to get the MS. merely by a request made through a third person, for Bentley knew nothing of Boyle, except that he was a relation of the great scientist who had founded the Lectureship which he had recently held: but this reason for not lending the MS. was not mentioned until later, and Bentley never suggested that it had influenced him in any way.

Despite his promise, Bentley did not get the MS. for Bennet, although Bennet reminded him frequently of the matter when he came to the shop: but he seems to have spoken contemptuously of the Epistles, and of the members of a great College who proposed to issue a new edition of a worthless book. Bentley's manner and speech was always haughty and often insolent; and he may have said things which would have deeply offended Boyle and his friends at Christ Church had they been repeated. Bentley's reason for not getting the MS. at once (except the obvious one that he was not appointed Librarian until April 1694), was never given. One may suggest that this is what happened: Bentley promised the MS. at a time when he felt sure that he would succeed Justel, but difficulties arose about his appointment; and while they were being settled he felt that it would be unwise for him to act as though he had obtained the post. When his appointment was made he found that he had promised more than he should have done: hence the delay in getting the MS. and his anxiety not to let it remain long out of the Library.^[9]

When Bentley took office he claimed under the Licensing Act of Charles II (which would soon expire) a large number of books which had not been sent by the booksellers to the Royal Library, during the last year or two of Justel's rule. Among others Bennet had to send a number of volumes, and this probably did not increase his liking for Bentley.

Meanwhile Boyle had written several times to Bennet about the MS. and was becoming impatient. On May 1st, 1694, he wrote, 'I am almost ashamed to trouble you any more, Mr Bennet, about the MS. I wish I had it; but if at all I must have it very quickly...'^[10] Bennet made another application to Bentley, and this time the MS. was delivered to him. Bentley said that he came and offered it voluntarily, but in this he seems to have been mistaken. Having obtained the MS., and knowing that Boyle was in great haste, Bennet sent the MS. to one George Gibson, a corrector of the press (what we should now call a 'proof-reader'), who could only work at nights, as he was engaged in his regular business all day; and told him to make a collation of the MS. with a printed copy of the Epistles; but fixed no time by which the work was to be completed. Gibson accordingly did not hurry.^[11]

Bentley had to go to Worcester towards the end of May. He says that he told Bennet this, and instructed him not to lose any time in getting the collation made, but Bennet stoutly denied that Bentley gave him any such warning. However that may be, Bentley had to leave for Worcester at five o'clock on Monday morning towards the end of May (either on May 21st or May 28th). On the Saturday preceding he called about noon at Bennet's shop, and said that the MS. must be returned at once as he was going away and could not trust the MS. out of the Library until his return. Bennet sent a messenger to the collator, who returned with the answer that the collation was not yet finished. Bentley apparently waited until this message was received, and then said that the MS. must be returned that day. Bennet asked that he might keep it till Sunday morning, and engaged to make the collator (who had been working all day) sit up all night to finish the collation. For whatever reason, Bentley refused, as he had a perfect right to do. By the same evening, therefore, the MS. was returned to Bentley, with no hint that the collation was not finished. When a quarrel broke out on this question Bentley tried how long the work should have taken, and found that he could have collated the whole book (which only contained 127 of the 148 Epistles) in four hours. The MS. had been in Bennet's hands about a week when Bentley asked for its return, and he had therefore no reason to think that between the noon and evening of Saturday, the work had not been completed.

However, Gibson had only collated 40 of the Epistles (and these so carelessly that Bentley noted 50 variant readings where Boyle's edition only recorded one), and the unfinished collation was sent to Boyle with the explanation that Bentley had refused the further use of the MS. No doubt Bennet thought the task a very much longer one than it really was, and no doubt Gibson worked very much more slowly at a Greek text than did the greatest Greek scholar in Europe, but this did not explain Bennet's explanation to Boyle of his failure to carry out his instructions.^[12]

About four months later Bentley returned to town and heard not a word from any one about the MS.: before the end of the year (1694) he spent a fortnight in Oxford, where Boyle's Phalaris was then being printed; he even visited Christ Church, where Boyle and his tutors lived, and not a single complaint of any kind was made to him.

On January 1st, 1695, Boyle's edition of the Epistles appeared. It contained a dedication to Dr Aldrich, a preface, a life of Phalaris, a Greek text with a Latin translation at the foot of each page, and a few notes at the end. The whole book (except, of course, the text) was, according to the fashion of the time, in Latin. It was a feeble performance (though for this, Boyle's tutors, and not Boyle, must be held responsible) and would long ago have been forgotten but for the last paragraph but one in the Preface.

'I have collated the Epistles themselves (Boyle wrote) with two Bodleian MSS. from the Cantuar and Selden collection: and I have also had them collated, as far as the 40th Epistle, with a MS. in the Royal Library: the Librarian with the courtesy for which he is remarkable refused me the further use of it.'

In the Preface, which deals with the question of the genuineness of the Epistles, Boyle explicitly stated—or his tutors said for him—that there was great doubt about the authorship of the Epistles: but he adopted Temple's estimate of their literary value, and paraphrased his paragraph about them from the Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning. A large number of copies of the book were distributed in Christ Church, according to Aldrich's custom, as a New Year's gift. Bentley did not see the book until January 26th, when copies were already in the hands of the booksellers. He wrote at once in terms of great civility to Boyle, and explained the circumstances under which he had withdrawn the MS. Boyle replied that he had written according to what he had heard from Bennet, that he should be much concerned if it proved that he had been misled, and that Bentley 'might do himself right' in what method he pleased.

Here, for the time, the matter rested.

 

Bentley's first 'Dissertation' (1697)

When Wotton was writing his Reflections Bentley, who was one of his personal friends, told him that the Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of Æsop, which Temple had praised so highly, were spurious; and he promised that on some other occasion he would prove his assertion.

In 1697 Wotton told Bentley that he was preparing a second edition of his Reflections, and asked him to fulfil his promise. Not very reluctantly, perhaps, Bentley wrote A Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris, Themistocles, Socrates, Euripides, and others; and the Fables of Æsop: and the paper was printed with a separate title-page at the end of Wotton's volume. That there might be no mistake about his intentions, Bentley reprinted at the head of the Dissertation the passage from Temple already referred to. In the Dissertation Bentley examined the Epistles under sixteen different heads. He showed that Phalaris was made in them to speak of things that did not exist in his time, of towns that had not been built or thought of; to quote from books that had not yet been written; to use Attic Greek, although he could only have known Doric Greek; to use a form of Attic that did not exist until hundreds of years after his death; to speak of the Sicilian talent (worth 1s. 10d. ) as though it had been the Attic talent (worth £180); and to write in a style that might well come from a rhetorician but could not possibly belong to a tyrant.

He then passes to a word with the editors of the new edition and tells his story of the withdrawal of the MS.^[13] The rest of the book is concerned with the other spurious Epistles mentioned in the title.

Throughout the Dissertation Bentley assumes that the edition of Phalaris is not the work of Boyle, but the work of his tutors: he speaks, not of 'the Editor' but of 'the Editors.' Bentley wrote his Dissertation in English, though replying to a Latin book, (as well, of course, as to Temple's Essay)—a thing which Boyle's friends seem to have resented^[14]—and was therefore making his appeal to the general public. Whether he should, under these circumstances, have used the knowledge which he possessed of the way in which the book was prepared, is at least doubtful. But if he had not done so, he would have been obliged to seem to attack publicly a young man of twenty (Boyle was eighteen when his Phalaris was published) for mistakes which he could not have been expected to avoid; for Bentley showed that the edition was extremely careless and revealed deplorable ignorance in its editors.

There were thus three disputes in progress at once—the first between Temple and Wotton about Ancient and Modern Learning; the second between Temple and Bentley about the genuineness of the Epistles of Phalaris; the third between Bentley, on the one side, and Boyle and his tutors, on the other, (a) about the withdrawal of the MS. of the Epistles, {b) about the value of the Epistles as literature, (c) about the scholarship exhibited in the new edition. This leaves out of the account the dispute about the Fables of Æsop^[15] which hardly concerns us here.

 

Boyle's 'Examination' (1698)

Boyle's tutors—of whom the most important was Atterbury, afterwards Dean of Christ Church—saw that for their own credit they must attempt an answer to Bentley: and some of the wits of Christ Church—Atterbury himself, Smalridge (who succeeded Atterbury as Dean), Alsop, Freind—joined in drawing up an answer to the Dissertation. In their reply (Dr Bentley's Dissertations on the Epistles of Phalaris, and the Fables of Æsop, examin'd by the Honourable Charles Boyle, Esq. . . . 1698) they attempted an answer to every one of Bentley's objections, and they even went so far as to say, that his attack on the Epistles tended to convince them that they were, after all, genuine. Although the book was issued in Boyle's name it was an open secret that he had very little indeed to do with it: and to judge from the tone of a letter^[16] written by Atterbury when returning the proofs of the book to him, Boyle felt by no means satisfied with their performance. He only remarked, Atterbury says, that 'he hoped the book would do him no harm.' But Boyle showed considerable generosity in allowing himself to be used as a stalking-horse for his tutors.^[17] The book although full of every sort of blunder was also full of life, and had a kind of wit. Its success was immediate: every one, except a few obscure scholars, thought that Bentley was defeated, and as Budgell says, 'the world was pleased to see a young man of quality and fortune get the better of an old critic,'^[18]—a sentence which exhibits the tone of the controversy. Bentley, it may be remarked, was thirty-six years of age.

Temple, who had suffered so severely at the hands of Wotton and Bentley, was delighted with Boyle's reply.^[19] He had himself begun a reply to Wotton but abandoned it, evidently feeling that he was unequal to the task: and Swift took up the quarrel for him. But of this more will be said in its place.

Boyle's Examination advanced the quarrel about the MS. another stage.^[20] Bennet replied, through Boyle, to Eentley's remarks in the Dissertation, and tried to show that he was in no way to blame for the trouble that arose.

 

Bentley's second 'Dissertation' (1699)

In the course of the year 1698 at least six other pamphlets were published, dealing more or less directly with the controversy that had arisen, but they are none of them important.^[21]

Bentley, meanwhile, was preparing his reply. In his first Dissertation there had been one or two small mistakes which his enemies were able to expose. He determined that there should, if possible, be nothing at which they could cavil in his new work. Early in 1699 his second Dissertation appeared, this time as an independent volume. In a preface of 112 pages he replied to Bennet's representations, and to a number of new charges brought against him in Boyle's Examination The body of the book consisted of a reprint, section by section, of his previous Dissertation; after each section he considered at full length the objections brought against it by his antagonists, so that the book was made up of a number of papers dealing with various disputed points in classical scholarship. And except in the cases of the small mistakes already mentioned, Bentley made an overwhelming reply to everything brought against him. The learning he showed was so stupendous as almost to defeat its own purpose, for there were, perhaps, hardly a dozen men in England fit to judge his work: those who understood saw not merely that he had demolished Phalaris and his supporters, but also that he had proved himself the greatest classical scholar of his day, one worthy to rank with the greatest who had ever lived.

But public opinion did not immediately acclaim his victory. Sir Richard Jebb has pointed out that for many years the idea remained current that Boyle had defeated Bentley. The publication of the Battle of the Books in 1704 is in itself sufficient evidence that popular feeling was on the side of Boyle and his friends.

Shortly after this Dissertation was published, the Christ Church men produced another book against Bentley—A Short Account of Dr Bentley's Humanity and Justice to those Authors who have written before him . . . 1699. In an Appendix, perhaps written by Dr King, Bennet, the bookseller, answered Bentley's statements in his second Dissertation. This book was answered on Bentley's behalf by Solomon Whateley who had recently produced a new edition of the Letters of Phalaris.^[22]

Three other books appeared during this same year (1699) containing references to the dispute: and then there was an interval of peace.

 

Atterbury's 'Short Review' (1701)

In 1701 Atterbury, the person most concerned on the wrong side of the controversy, produced A Short Review of the Controversy between Mr Boyle and Dr Bentley, a violent attack on Bentley, concluding with a character of Dr Bentley, made up of extracts from Bentley's writings. Neither this book, nor those that preceded, prevented Bentley and Atterbury coming to have respect for one another in later years.^[23]

In the same year Swift published the third part of Temple's Miscellanea containing among other papers, that defence of his Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning which Temple had begun but never completed: and in 1704 Swift published the volume containing the Tale of a Tub, and the Battle of the Books. Of these it remains to speak.

 

Swift and Temple

Born in 1667, at a house in Hoey's Court, Dublin, Jonathan Swift was the child of English parents. His father died some months before the birth of this his only son (a daughter had been born some time before); and Swift was educated at Kilkenny Grammar School, and Trinity College, Dublin, at the expense chiefly of one of his uncles, Godwin Swift. He remained some time at Trinity College after taking a not very honourable degree, and then went to live with his mother at Leicester. Towards the end of the year 1689 he became a sort of amanuensis to Sir William Temple, whose wife, Dorothy Osborne, the writer of delightful letters, was distantly related to Swift's mother. He lived with Sir William first at Sheen, and then at More Park^[24] in Surrey, but on the advice of physicians 'who weakly imagined that his native air might be of some use to recover his health,' left him in May 1690 in order to return to Ireland.

He came back to Temple's house in the autumn of 1691 and remained with him until May 1694, when in a fit of anger he left his patron, went to Ireland in the following month, took Holy Orders four months later, and became Prebendary of Kilroot in the following year.

In May 1696 he came for the third time to Temple's house, this time as an independent man, and remained there until shortly after Temple's death, which took place on January 27, 1699. Swift was thus an inmate of Temple's house during three different periods—from the close of 1689 to May 1690; from the autumn of 1691 to May 1694; and from May 1696 to the opening of 1699. On his first visit Swift came to Temple as a poor relation; during his second visit Temple seems to have recognised that his amanuensis had something in him—to this period belong the stories of Swift's intimacy with William III; when he came to Temple for what proved to be the last time, he may well have felt that in accepting Temple's hospitality he was rather conferring an obligation than incurring one.

It was during (or soon after) Swift's first stay that Temple published the book containing his essay Upon the Ancient and Modern Learning. Wotton's Reflections and Boyle's edition of Phalaris appeared while Swift was in Ireland; and it may have been during this time that Temple began the reply to Wotton (which he never completed), of which Swift said, when he published it in 1701, 'I cannot well inform the reader upon what occasion it was writ, having been at that time in another kingdom.'^[25]

Bentley's first Dissertation, and Boyle's Examination appeared during Swift's third stay with Temple. Bentley's second Dissertation appeared after Temple's death.

 

'The Battle of the Books'—(a) Date

The Battle of the Books was the second of three of Swift's works issued together in one volume in 1704. The first was A Tale of a Tub; the third was A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit. For reasons not now very evident, Swift was anxious to make it appear that all these works were written while he was still a young man. The publication of the volume undoubtedly destroyed his chances of a bishopric; and he may have anticipated some such result when the book was first issued. In any case it is noticeable that the same desire to give an early date for its composition is shown in the first edition as in the fifth edition of 1710, in which Swift pleads the rashness and inexperience of youth in palliation of any offence the book might have given.^[26]

Leaving out of account the notice from the Bookseller to the Reader (see p. 251), the date of the composition of the Battle of the Books may be set down as 1697–1698. The first part^[27] deals with the general question of the superiority of the Ancients or the Moderns and refers to the work of Wotton and Bentley. As the second edition of Wotton's Reflections which contained Bentley's first Dissertation did not appear until after April 1697, this part of the book must have been written after that date; or if it was begun earlier (as is quite possible), it must have been considerably altered. The fact that Boyle is not mentioned in the first part of the Battle suggests that this part was written before the appearance of his Examination in 1698.

The second part^[28] refers, among other things, to Boyle's reply to Bentley and Wotton, which as we have just seen appeared in 1698; and this part of the Battle must, accordingly, have been written in 1698 or later. As there is no reason to suppose a later date, we may safely accept 1698.

The date for the book as we have it would be, therefore, 1697-8. As the date of the Battle has sometimes been given as 1696, it is necessary, perhaps, to insist on this point.

 

(b) Relation to the 'Tale of a Tub'

Section III of the Tale of a Tub, the Digression Concerning Critics, is largely an attack upon Wotton and Bentley; and there are, besides, many other references in the Tale to them, and to the Ancient and Modern Learning Controversy.^[29] It has been suggested that the Battle was written after the Tale, and that the Digressions in the Tale grew out of the Battle.^[30] There is very little evidence on the subject, and as both books were added to, at various times before publication, the difficulty of determining the order in which they were written is greatly increased. It may, however, be pointed out that Swift said in 1710 that the Tale^[31] was intended to satirise the 'numerous and gross corruptions in Religion and Learning,' and that the greater part of it was written by 1696. If this is true the Digressions must have formed part of the original plan of the book;^[32] and we must suppose them to have preceded the composition of the Battle. According, again, to Swift's Apology, the references in the Tale to Bentley and Wotton were added later, when the Battle was written.^[33]

It may be suggested that the Battle was originally intended to form a part of the Tale of a Tub; that Swift determined to make a separate book of it, and that he added later those parts of it which deal particularly with Bentley, Wotton, and Boyle.

 

(c) Relation to Temple's Essay

Hawkesworth remarked in his edition of Vol. I of Swift's Works^[34] that 'the account of the Battle of the Books is an allegorical representation of Sir William Temple's Essay.' A few points of resemblance between the two works have been noticed by Sir Walter Scott and other editors of Swift. These, and some other examples are referred to in the notes to this edition, and references to them are given below^[35] so that the reader may judge for himself to what extent Hawkesworth's statement is accurate.

In addition to these smaller resemblances, it is worthy of remark that Swift's choice of combatants to represent the Ancients is plainly based upon that made by Temple in his Essay. If one makes a list of the Ancients mentioned in the Battle one is at once struck by the fact that the names of the ancient dramatists and orators are all omitted; neither Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plautus, Terence, Demosthenes, nor Cicero, appears in it. The Battle is, of course, professedly incomplete, and if Swift had been asked why these names were omitted he might have replied that their deeds were recorded in those parts of the MS. which perished 'by the injury of fortune or weather.' But there is another explanation. If one makes a list of the Ancients mentioned by Temple one finds that he, too, omits the names of all the dramatists, and only mentions one orator—Cicero. In other respects Swift's list agrees sufficiently closely with that of Temple to make it seem most probable that Swift's list was based almost entirely on Temple's.

In the case of the Moderns the lists in the Battle and the Essay are not nearly so much alike; this is partly due to the fact that Temple had mentioned a large number of the Moderns in terms of praise. Swift had necessarily to omit these names, and substitute others. On the other hand Swift mentions nearly all those whom Temple had disparaged.

Surprise is sometimes expressed that Swift should have taken the wrong side in the dispute about the Epistles of Phalaris. In one sense the explanation is simple enough. He had to support the doctrines of his patron, who was deeply committed on the subject. But the account of the controversy which he gives in the Episode of W-tt-n and B-ntl-y shows that he did f not trouble to discover either the real course of the dispute, or the merits of either side. If the story he tells were interpreted strictly it would appear that Boyle first attacked Wotton, because the latter had attacked Temple, that he next turned his attention to Bentley, that Wotton then came to Bentley's assistance, and that Boyle defeated them both. This, perhaps, is to consider too curiously; but Swift certainly appears to be only half-informed of the facts. It will be seen that the note from the Bookseller to the Reader^[36] gives the order of events perfectly accurately.

In another sense there is no doubt that Swift was in the right. In the matter of the Epistles of Phalaris, Temple and Swift were completely in the wrong; but Bentley's edition of Paradise Lost showed (much later, it is true) the absurdities into which even his acute intellect might be tempted by his self-sufficiency and lack of taste. Bentley's chief interest in the classics was philological and historical rather than literary; and so far as Swift's book was a protest against pedantry it was on the right side. But the protest would have come better from one who had some pretence to equal Bentley in scholarship.

 

(d) Suggested Sources

Writing in 1705 Wotton said, *I have been assured that the Battle in St. James's Library is mutatis mutandis taken out of a French book entitled Combat des Livres, if I misremember not.'^[37] The 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.^[38] 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,^[39] 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 royaume d'Éloquence, &c. The book appeared in 1658 and is an account of the war between le prince Rhétorique and le capitaine Galimatias, in which the troops are figures of speech and the leaders great writers. There seems to be nothing in the book which could have suggested anything to Swift for use in the Battle.

It has been suggested also that Swift took the idea of the Battle from Chant V of Boileau's poem Le Lutrin (1674). The combatants in Le Lutrin use books as missiles; in the Battle the books themselves fight—plainly a different thing.

On the whole question one may say that the only book to which Swift is indebted in the Battle is Temple's Essay: there is not sufficient evidence to show that he took hints from any other book, except perhaps the main idea of a combat.

 

(e) Publication

There seems at first sight to be no reason why Swift should not have published the Battle when it was written. He wrote the book to support Temple, and it would have seemed natural to publish it as a reply to Wotton and Bentley. The following extract from a letter written by Temple (about Boyle's Examination) dated March 30, 1698, apparently gives the explanation.^[40]

'You needed no excuse for anything in your former letter, nor Mr ——— for giving you the occasion for it. What he saw, was written to a friend ——— who had undertaken ——— without my knowledge: which I afterwards diverted, having no mind to enter the list with such a mean, dull, unmannerly pedant.'

It is impossible now to fill in the blanks with any certainty: but the date of the letter strongly suggests that the 'friend' was Swift, and that Temple refers to the Tale of a Tub or the Battle of the Books. If this is true. Swift postponed publication in deference to Temple's wishes, and waited for five years after his death before disregarding them. Considering his ignorance of the whole subject, Temple's feeling that it would be more dignified not to publish an answer to his opponents was undoubtedly justified.^[41]

 

(f) The Notes (1704 and 1710)

In the first, second, third, and fourth editions of the Battle of the Books there appeared the footnotes printed with the body of the text in the present edition. In the fifth and subsequent editions some other notes were added: these are printed, in this edition, among the notes at the end of the volume, with the indication that they are from the fifth edition.

The question who wrote this second set of notes is very interesting, but probably is now insoluble. The title-page to the whole volume of the fifth edition bears the words 'The Fifth Edition: With the Author's Apology and Explanatory Notes. By W. W-tt-n, B.D., and others.' At the end of the Apology Swift says, 'The Author is informed, that the Bookseller has prevailed on several Gentlemen, to write some Explanatory Notes, for the goodness of which he is not to answer, having never seen any of them, nor intends it, till they appear in Print, when it is not unlikely he may have the pleasure to find twenty meanings, which never entered into his Imagination.'

Wotton's notes only concern the Tale of a Tub and the Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit, and they are taken from his Defence of 1705 (see below).

It is just possible that the notes which cannot be assigned to Wotton, came from Swift; but after all there is no evidence on the question.

 

Wotton's 'Defence' (1705)

In 1705 Wotton published a third edition of his Reflections and added a paper,^[42] dated May 21, 1705, in which he replied to Temple's Thoughts upon Reviewing the Essay of Ancient and Modern Learning (see p. xxxv.), issued by Swift in 1701. The last twenty pages of Wotton's Defence are occupied with a very hostile commentary upon Swift's volume of 1704 (see p. xxxviii.), and in them are to be found the explanations which, with cool effrontery, were added as notes to the fifth edition of the Tale of a Tub, etc. (1710). Wotton's reference to the Battle of the Books has already been quoted (p. xliv.).

Some interest attaches to Wotton's conjectures at the authorship of the Tale of a Tub.^[43] In one place^[44] he says that 'a brother [he means 'cousin'J of Dr Swift's is publicly reported to have been the editor at least, if not the author [of the Tale of a Tub]': in another^[45] he says that Mr Swift [i.e. Thomas Swift] is under great obligations to clear himself from the imputation of having written the book. 'The world besides (he continues) will think it odd that a man should in a dedication play upon that great man, to whom he is more obliged than to any other man now living; for it was at Sir William Temple's request, that my Lord Somers, then Lord-Keeper of the Great-Seal of England, gave Mr Swift a very good benefice in one of the most delicious parts of one of the pleasantest counties of England. It is publicly reported that he wrote this book: it is a story which, . . . I neither made, nor spread; for it has been long as public as it can well be. The injury done to religion, that any of its ministers should lie under the imputation of writing such a burlesque upon it, will be irreparable, if the person so charged does not do it and himself justice. I say himself, for in my own conscience I acquit him from composing it. The author, I believe, is dead, and it is probable that it was writ in the year 1697, when it is said to have been written.'

His remarks about the Dedication to Lord Somers show that Wotton's sense of humour was somewhat deficient.

 

Swift's 'Apology' (1710)

For the fifth edition of the Tale and other pieces contained in the 1704 volume Swift wrote An Apology For the, etc,'^[46] It is an answer to Wotton's Defence. With those parts of it which concern the Tale we are not here concerned: but the following passages concern the Battle of the Books directly.

'It was determined by a fair majority that this answerer [Wotton] had, in a way not to be pardoned, drawn his pen against a certain great man then alive, and universally reverenced for every good quality that could possibly enter into the composition of the most accomplished person; it was observed how he was pleased and affected to have that noble writer called his adversary; and it was a point of satire well directed; for I have been told Sir W [illiam] T[emple] was sufficiently mortified at the term. All the men of wit and politeness were immediately up in arms through indignation, which prevailed over their contempt, by the consequences they apprehended from such an example; and it grew Porsenna's case; idem trecenti juravimus. In short, things were ripe for a general insurrection, till my Lord Orrery had a little laid the spirit, and settled the ferment. But his lordship being principally engaged with another antagonist [Bentley], it was thought necessary, in order to quiet the minds of men, that this opposer should receive a reprimand, which partly occasioned that discourse of the Battle of the Books; and the author was farther at the pains to insert one or two remarks on him, in the body of the book.'^[47]

It will be noticed that the last sentence favours the theory that the Battle was written after, not before, the Tale of a Tub (see above, pp. xl. and xli.).

To Wotton's remark about the Combat des Livres (see p. xliv. ) Swift replied:

'In [this] passage there are two clauses observable; "I have been assured"; and, "if I misremember not." I desire first to know whether, if that conjecture proves an utter falsehood, those two clauses will be a sufficient excuse for this worthy critic? The matter is a trifle; but would he venture to pronounce at this rate upon one of greater moment? I know nothing more contemptible in a writer, than the character of a plagiary, which he here fixes at a venture; and this not for a passage, but a whole discourse, taken out from another book, only mutatis mutandis. The author is as much in the dark about this as the answerer; and will imitate him by an affirmation at random; that if there be a word of truth in this reflection, he is a paltry, imitating pedant; and the answerer is a person of wit, manners, and truth. He takes his boldness, from never having seen any such treatise in his life, nor heard of it before; and he is sure it is impossible for two writers, of different times and countries, to agree in their thoughts after such a manner, that two continued discourses shall be the same, only mutatis mutandis. Neither will he insist upon the mistake of the title, but let the answerer and his friend produce any book they please, he defies them to shew one single particular, where the judicious reader will affirm he has been obliged for the smallest hint; giving only allowance for the accidental encountering of a single thought, which he knows may sometimes happen; though he has never yet found it in that discourse, nor has heard it objected by any body else.'^[48]

The judicious reader will put his own valuation upon this denial.

 

Conclusion

Considerable interest attaches to the question. What was the real origin of the hostility of the Christ Church men to Bentley? In 1689 Bentley went to Oxford as tutor to James Stillingfleet, son of the Bishop of Worcester, becoming a member of Wadham College. In all probability the origin of the quarrel is to be sought at this time. Benjamin Hody, tutor of Wadham, had already been appointed chaplain to the Bishop of Worcester, Bentley's patron; in 1690 Bentley took orders, and was given a second chaplaincy by the Bishop. In 1691, when the edition of Malelas (see p. xx.) was nearly ready, Bentley was asked by Hody why he always referred to the author as Malelas instead of Malela, his usual designation hitherto. In answer to the challenge Bentley added to his Letter to Mill an examination of the whole question of the form assumed by Greek names when Latinised. Hody was completely answered, and was angry at his defeat.^[49] As Monk remarked,^[50] 'There is too much reason to believe, that the offence given by this trivial cause was never afterwards healed.'^[51] The Oxford scholars felt bound to put down the presumptuous Cambridge man. Some other possible grounds of offence may be mentioned: Bentley was a Whig and his opponents were Tories: there may have been some ill-feeling in Oxford at the appointment of Bentley to deliver the first Boyle lecture; for Robert Boyle, at least by residence, was an Oxford man: Bentley was not of high birth, and his overbearing manners tended to deepen the impression that he was 'a sort of ploughboy who had been developed into a learned boor'—a great deal of this contempt for an upstart scholar will be noticed in Boyle's Examination: lastly, Bentley knew the things that Boyle's tutors professed to know, and they felt all the hatred of the fluent charlatan for the genuine scholar.

Recollecting, then, Bentley's reputation for arrogance, and the dislike of him caused by his birth, his politics, and his learning, one may understand partly, at least, the feeling which dictated the phrase bro singulari sua humanitate.

 

The Present Edition

The present reprint of the Battle of the Books is based upon a comparison of the first, third, fifth, and sixth editions. A list of the significant variants is given at pp. 291-2. The notes printed with the text are those which originally formed part of the book; the notes added to the fifth edition (see pp. xlviii.-ix.) are given at the end of the volume along with the editorial notes.

The Appendix consists of extracts from the literature of the Ancient and Modern Learning Controversy. The text followed is indicated at the head of each extract. Temple's Essay could not be given in full, or the Appendix, already long, would have been very much longer. The argument is, therefore, occasionally summarised, but the summaries are as nearly as possible in the words of the original text. The translation of the Epistles of Phalaris has been made from Boyle's text by Mr R. S. Bate, M.A. The text of Boyle's Examination has been made from a comparison of the first and third editions. The slight differences are indicated in the notes. In the extracts all marginal references have been omitted except those which seemed likely to interest the modern reader. Those which appeared interesting have been printed with the notes, in each case with an indication of their origin. The space thus saved has been used for a Bibliography.

The two letters at pp. 293-6 have been printed from photographs made in the Bodleian by the courteous permission of Bodley's Librarian.

In the notes an attempt has been made to illustrate the Battle of the Books from the literature of the controversy to which it belongs. The notes on the other pieces reprinted are much less elaborate, and are mainly intended to assist the reader who is interested in Swift's work.

The editor's debt to previous writers on the Ancient and Modern Learning Controversy—particularly to Jebb and Monk—is too obvious to need acknowledgement. In writing the notes on the Battle he has occasionally made use of the editions of Sir Henry Craik, Mr C. Egerton, and Mr Temple Scott. The second, in particular, has suggested some classical parallels.

Prof. Spingarn's Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century appeared as this book was passing through the press.

To his friend Mr C. D. Chambers, M.A., Lecturer in Latin in the University of Birmingham, the editor would offer his thanks for much valuable help.

1. The abbreviations used in this Introduction are explained at p. 250.
2. Told at full length in Rigault's Histoire de la querelle des anciens et des modernes (Œuvres complètes de H. Rigault, 1859, vol. i.).
3. 'Tout est bien changé actuellement, et cette époque ne vaut pas les précédentes,' says Maître Mouche in Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard.
4. For the date, see the Bibliography to this volume (p. 298.)
5. Dr Johnson mentions its existence in the time of Milton.
6. See p. lii.
7. The date of Justel's death is uncertain; it is usually given as Sept. 1693
8. See the letter printed at p. 294 of this vol.
9. See pp. 293 and 179-80 of this vol.
10. See the Appendix to the Short Account (for which see pp. xxxiii.-iv. below).
11. This is Bennet's account. It is flatly contradicted by Gibson's letter (see pp. 294–6 of this vol.).
12. When Bennet died, Atterbury preached his funeral sermon (Aug. 30, 1706), and spoke very highly of him. Atterbury would certainly have known if Bennet had acted dishonestly.
13. See pp. 115-8 of the Appendix to this volume.
14. See p. 229 of Boyle's Examination.
15. As an answer to Bentley's attack upon them, a new edition of the Fables was produced by Anthony Alsop in 1698. It refers to Bentley twice: once (in the Preface) as Richardum quendam Bentleium virum in volvendis Lexicis satis diligentem: and again in the last fable Canis in praesepi (p. 128), where allusion is made to Bentley's refusal of the MS. of Phalaris. The book was another of the Christ Church publications.
16. See Bibliography, p. 308.
17. In 1701 we hear that Bentley and Boyle have become friends and entertain a better opinion of one another than they did before. It was in this year that Atterbury issued the Short Review, (see p. xxxiv.).
18. Budgell's Memoirs . . . of the late Earl of Orrery . . . (1732), p. 193.
19. See Courtenay II. 186.
20. See pp. 119-29 of the Appendix to this volume.
21. See Bibliography, pp. 299-301.
22. See pp. 301-3.
23. Jebb's Bentley, p. 85.
24. 'The two so-called Moor Parks—in Hertfordshire and Surrey—were respectively Moor Park and More Park. The house in which Temple last lived and died is written thrice in his (probably) holograph Will, and always as Moreparke, or More Parke.' See Mr Forbes Sieveking's Sir William Temple Upon the Gardens of Epicurus, &c. (pp. xx.-xxi.).
25. Swift knew perfectly well upon what occasion the paper was written. By his own account, the Battle of the Books was completed by 1701, though it was not published.
26. See the Author's Apology prefixed to the fifth edition (S. i. 13).
27. pp. 1-37 of this edition.
28. pp. 37–47 of this edition.
29. e.g. S. i. pp. 37-8, 56, 90, 92, 103, 117, 126, 142.
30. See Prof. Churton Collins's Jonathan Swift, p. 42.
31. Swift says 'the book'; but he evidently refers to the Tale only.
32. Curll's Key (see p. 304), which is suspected to have been written by Thomas Swift, says that the Digressions were added later.
33. See p. lii. below.
34. 1753, p. 154.
35. 4, 6; 13, 19; 17, 6; 17, 9; 21, 6; 22, 19; 25, last line; 28, 9; 30, 16-7; 32, 3.
36. pp. lxiii.-iv. of this edition.
37. Reflections, third edition, p. 540.
38. See below, pp. liii.-iv.
39. p. 405.
40. The letter is printed in the Appendix to the Short Account.
41. See also Courtenay II. 191.
42. 'A Defense of the Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning, In Answer to the Objections of Sir W. Temple, and Others. With Observations upon The Tale of a Tub.'
43. His remarks are intended to include the Battle of the Books.
44. p. 519.
45. p. 539.
46. This is the title printed; the pages are headed An Apology. It may be noticed that the correct title of the Tale is A Tale of a Tub, not The Tale of a Tub.
47. S. i. pp. 18, 19.
48. S. i. pp. 20-1.
49. See Jebb's Bentley, pp. 15-16.
50. Life of Richard Bentley, second edition (1833), Vol. I, p. 30.
51. See p. 300 of the Bibliography to this vol.