these sections that Swift had in mind when he said that the greatest part was finished in 1696. The critical digressions, even allowing for insertions, belong to the latter half of 1697 at the earliest. The addition of the 'abuses in Learning' to the abuses in Religion was evidently an afterthought.

The circumstances of Swift's life point to the same dates. He lived with Temple at Moor Park from 1689 to 1690, from 1691 to 1694, and from the summer of 1696 till Temple's death in January 1699. During the interval from 1694 to 1696 he was in Ireland. He was ordained Deacon in October 1694, and Priest in January 1695, and a fortnight later was presented to the small Prebend of Kilroot near Belfast. There his ancestral prejudices against the Nonconformists were likely to be confirmed. When he returned to Temple's house in 1696, he was well equipped to draw the character of Jack. Possibly he had begun the Tale at Kilroot, for if there is any truth in the story that Westenra Waring had seen some part of it in manuscript, he must have seen it there. Then in the third and final period of residence with Temple he had the leisure, and the stimulus, for completing his book. His other works lend no support to the view that he could have written it before this time. Yet the allegory, which there is every reason for considering the original part of the book, may long have been in his mind before it was given its final form; and it is not impossible that the first rough sketch of it was made while he was still an undergraduate at Trinity College, Dublin.

1 See Correspondence, ed. Elrington Ball, vol. i, p. 15.

2

Cf. supra p. xxxii, and Forster, Life of Swift, p. 84.

VII. THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS."

The Battle of the Books must have been written shortly after the publication of Bentley's first Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris in June 1697. If it was begun before that date, it was seriously altered. The references to Boyle, which are confined to the latter part, suggest that it was completed about the time when Boyle's Examination of Bentley's Dissertation was published, early in March 1698. The 'Bookseller to the Reader gives the date as 1697.

A letter written by Sir William Temple about Boyle's Examination on March 30, 1698, may explain why the Battle was not published when it was written. It shows, at least, that whereas the Examination drew a distinction between the manners of Bentley and Wotton, Swift followed Temple in thinking them equally guilty of misapplied learning and foul-mouthed railing The letter does no credit to Temple's judgement, nor to his temper; but it indicates the kind of conversation that must have largely inspired Swift's work:

2

Moor-Park, March 30. 98.

I think there can be no Exception to any thing in it [Mr Boyle's Book] besides His Partiality to me; which perhaps will be less forgiven him by the Dr, than any other Fault. For the rest, the Compass and Application of so much Learning, the Strength and Pertinence of Arguments, the Candour of his Relations, in Return to such Foulmouth'd Railing, the pleasant Turns of .Wit, and the Easiness of Style, are, in my Opinion, as extraordinary, as the contrary of these all appear to be, in what the Dr and his Friend have written. So that I have as much reason to be pleased with finding my self in Mr Boyle's good Opinion, as I should be sorry to

be in Theirs.

You needed no Excuse for any thing 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:

Edited separately by A. C. Guthkelch in 1908 (Chatto and

Windus).

2 See p. 11, note 2.

Which I afterwards diverted, having no mind to Enter the List, with such a Mean, Dull, Unmannerly PEDANT.1

The blanks cannot now be filled with any certainty, and we do not know what it was that Temple diverted'. It may have been the Battle of the Books. But even if Temple referred to another work, the letter serves to show that in postponing publication Swift acted in harmony with Temple's wishes.

Hawkesworth described the Battle as an allegorical representation of Sir William Temple's Essay'. Several points of resemblance have been noted by Sir Walter Scott and other editors. Not the least striking is that Swift's choice of combatants to represent the Ancients corresponds to Temple's. Had Swift been/taxed with the omission of the ancient dramatists and orators, he might have replied that their deeds were recorded in those parts of the manuscript which perished by the Injury of Fortune or Weather'. But as Temple had omitted them all except Cicero, it is simpler to suppose that Swift merely followed the lead of his patron. Their lists of the Moderns are not so similar, because Temple had mentioned many of the Moderns with praise, but Swift was careful to include nearly all whom Temple had disparaged.

In his Observations upon The Tale of a Tub Wotton said he had been assured that the Battle was mutatis mutandis taken out of a French book', entitled, he thought, Combat des Livres. This book must be the Histoire Poëtique de la Guerre nouvellement declarée entre les Anciens et les Modernes, written in prose by François de Callières, and published anonymously in 1688. In it all the main kinds of Ancient and Modern literature are ranged in order of battle against each other; and in the combats

1 Printed at the end of the Appendix to A Short Account of Dr Bentley's Humanity and Justice, 1699, p. 140.

2

p. 250, note 3.

3 See notes pp. 220, 226, 231, 232, 234, 240, 241, 244, 245. 4 PP. 14, 323.

which ensue the author produced what the English translator in 1714 called a just piece of general criticism.' The parallelisms in Swift's work are not striking, and may well have been fortuitous. Swift denied that he was obliged to it, or any other book, for the smallest hint.3 At a time when the claims of the Ancients and the Moderns were debated with so much vigour in France and in England, the setting of a battle would naturally present itself to any one.

Another French book, to which the Histoire Poëtique itself might have been indebted, has also been stated to be a 'source' of Swift's work. Abel Boyer said in his Memoirs of Sir William Temple (1714) that the hint for the Battle was taken from an allegorical novel by Monsieur de Furetière', which is explained in a foot-note to be the Nouvelle Allegorique, ou Histoire des Derniers Troubles arrivez au Royaume d'Eloquence, published at Paris in 1658.5 It describes a civil war in the kingdom of Eloquence, the rule of 'la reine Rhétorique having been challenged by 'le prince Galimatias'. The troops that are marshalled in defence of the former are the chief literary forms, such as Dramas, Epics, Histories, Romances, and Speeches; and the army of the latter is

3 Apology', pp. 14, 15.

4 In both there are plates giving the plans of battle. The plate in the Histoire Poëtique is reproduced, and Englished, in the translation of 1714; the other is given as a frontispiece to J. E. Spingarn's Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, vol. i.

5 An English adaptation published in 1705 under the title The Tale of a Tub, revers'd was described by A. C. Guthkelch in The Library for July 1913. The only known copy is preserved in the Library at Lambeth Palace.

composed of the figures of speech, such as Hyperboles, Antitheses, Allusions, Allegories, and Puns. The leaders on both sides are well-known writers. It would be remarkable if no points of similarity could be discovered between this book and Swift's. But again it has to be said that the general idea of a battle is the main thing they have in common.

Though written at the time when the Tale was taking shape, the Battle of the Books does not show the same maturity. Its lower power must be accounted for by the comparative narrowness of its subject. The structure could not allow the full display of Swift's peculiar talents. It was an interlude, not unwillingly abandoned, in the composition of the greater work.

VIII. THE MECHANICAL OPERATION OF THE SPIRIT.

In the Apology' Swift disclaimed responsibility for the Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the

Perhaps the most striking is the satire on Indexes and Common-place Books, two LieutenantGenerals in the army of Galimatias: 'l'un se nommoit Index, qui au contraire des autres Chefs marchoit toûjours à la queue, afin de rallier ses Troupes, fort sujettes à se débander. L'autre appellé Polyanthéa, marchoit a la teste' (p. 24). Polyanthéa is explained in a note to be le titre d'un gros Dictionnaire, ou Recueil de lieux communs, où sont ramassez par ordre alphabétique les passages de plusieurs autheurs sur toutes sortes de matières'. There is no possible question of borrowing here. The 6 source' of Swift's satire on indexes and commonplace books,

The

which plays so large a part in the critical digressions of the Tale, was not another man's book, but his own observation, mainly of Bentley.

2 A note on Swift's debt to French sources' will be found in Rigault's Histoire de la querelle des anciens et des modernes, 1856, p. 341: En remontant plus haut que le xvIIe siècle, on verrait que l'idée première de la Bataille des livres est empruntée peut-être à un vieux fabliau, où se trouve raconté un combat de ce genre entre l'Université de Paris et celle d'Orléans. (Voir le recueil de Barbazan et de Méon.) Ce qui est sûr, c'est que l'idée de Swift est d'origine française.'