the author has drawn no comparison between the ancient and modern dramatists. A more private and petty subject of controversy, but which, perhaps, on that very account, was conducted with yet greater animosity, was involved in the grand comparative discussion of ancient and modern learning. About 1624, the Honourable Mr. Boyle, a young gentleman of high promise at Christ Church, was engaged in a new edition of the Epistles of Phalaris. While thus occupied, he applied to Dr. Bentley, then keeper of the King's Library, for the use of a manuscript of his author which was there deposited. This, according to Mr. Boyle's statement, was reluctantly lent, and hastily withdrawn-usage of which he complained in the preface to his edition of Phalaris. Nearly three years afterwards, when Mr. Wotton published his "Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning," Dr. Bentley supplied an appendix, in which he denied the authenticity of the Fables of Æsop, and of the Epistles of Phalaris, not without sharply retorting upon the honourable editor for the misemployment of his time in publishing a spurious author, and for the reflections he had thrown out in his preface touching the manuscript. This dissertation also affected Sir William Temple, as it vilified and degraded, as spurious, an author upon whose merit he had founded considerably in his controversy with Wotton. To these reflections Boyle answered in the treatise known by the title of Boyle against Bentley, to which Dr. Atterbury, and many of the Christ Church wits, are said to have contributed. Dr. Bentley retorted in another volume, which has been called Bentley against Boyle. The fashion of the day gave the victory to Boyle, and his more learned, though less popular rival, was for a short time the butt of general ridicule. At one time, he was painted in the brazen bull of the tyrant to whose epistles he had denied authenticity, still bellowing forth, however, "I had rather be roasted than boyled." On another occasion, Garth thus compliments his antagonist, at his expense, in the following lines: So diamonds take a lustre from their foil, Swift too, whose patron, Temple, did not escape some touches of Bentley's lash, has retaliated in his behalf, with an unsparing hand. Yet, after all that wit could allege, it has, I believe, been long an admitted point among scholars, that Bentley had decidedly the best of the argument; nor can we, who look back upon it at the distance of an hundred years, discern the least inferiority in his mode of conducting the warfare. THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER. THE following Discourse, as it is unquestionably of the same author, so it seems to have been written about the same time with the former; I mean the year 1697, when the famous dispute was on foot about ancient and modern learning. The controversy took its rise from an essay of Sir William Temple's upon that subject; which was answered by W. Wotton, B.D., with an Appendix by Dr. Bentley, endeavouring to destroy the credit of Esop and Phalaris for authors, whom Sir William Temple had, in the essay before mentioned, highly commended. In that appendix, the doctor falls hard upon a new edition of Phalaris, put out by the Honourable Charles Boyle, now Earl of Orrery, to which Mr. Boyle replied at large, with great learning and wit; and the doctor voluminously rejoined. In this dispute, the town highly resented to see a person of Sir Willaim Temple's character and merits roughly used by the two reverend gentlemen aforesaid, and without any manner of provocation. At length, there appearing no end of the quarrel, our author tells us, that the BOOKS in St. James's Library. looking upon themselves as parties principally concerned, took up the controversy, and came to a decisive battle; but the manuscript, by the injury of fortune or weather, being in several places imperfect, we cannot learn to which side the victory fell. I must warn the reader to beware of applying to persons what is here meant only of books, in the most literal sense. So, when Virgil is mentioned, THOR. PREF ACE OF THE AUTHOR. 21I we are not to understand the person of a famous poet called by that name; but only certain sheets of paper, bound up in leather, containing in print the works of the said poet and so of the rest. THE PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR. SATIRE is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it. But, if it should happen otherwise, the danger is not great; and I have learned, from long experience, never to apprehend mischief from those understandings I have been able to provoke : for anger and fury, though they add strength to the sinews of the body, yet are found to relax those of the mind, and to render all its efforts feeble and impotent. There is a brain that will endure but one scumming; let the owner gather it with discretion, and manage his little stock with husbandry; but, of all things, let him beware of bringing it under the lash of his betters, because that will make it all bubble up into impertinence, and he will find no new supply. 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; but, once scummed away, what appears underneath will be fit for nothing but to be thrown to the hogs. HOEVER examines, with due circumspection, into the annual records of time, will find it remarked, that war is the child of pride, and pride the daughter of riches: -the former of which assertions may be soon granted, but one cannot so easily subscribe to the latter; for pride is nearly related to beggary and want, either by father or mother, and sometimes by both and, to speak naturally, it very seldom happens among men to fall out when all have enough; invasions usually travelling from north to south, that is to say, from poverty to plenty. The most ancient and natural grounds of quarrels, are lust and' avarice; which, though we may allow to be brethren, or collateral branches of pride, are certainly the issues of want. For, to speak in the phrase of writers upon politics, we may observe in the republic of dogs, * Riches produce pride; pride is war's ground, &c. Vide Ephem. de Mary Clarke; opt. edit.-now called Wing's Sheet Almanack, and printed by J. Roberts, for the Company of Stationers.-H. which, in its original, seems to be an institution of the many, that the whole state is ever in the profoundest peace after a full meal; and that civil broils arise among them when it happens for one great bone to be seized on by some leading dog, who either divides it among the few, and then it falls to an oligarchy, or keeps it to himself, and then it runs up to a tyranny. The same reasoning also holds place among them in those dissensions we behold upon a turgescency in any of their females. For the right of possession lying in common, (it being impossible to establish a property in so delicate a case), jealousies and suspicions do so abound, that the whole commonwealth of that street is reduced to a manifest state of war, of every citizen against every citizen, till some one, of more courage, conduct, or fortune than the rest, seizes and enjoys the prize upon which naturally arises plenty of heartburning, and envy, and snarling against the happy dog. Again, if we look upon any of those republics engaged in a foreign war, either of invasion or defence, we shall find the same reasoning will serve as to the grounds and occasions of each; and that poverty or want, in some degree or other, (whether real or in opinion, which makes no alteration in the case), has a great share, as well as pride, on the part of the aggressor. Now, whoever will please to take this scheme, and either reduce or adapt it to an intellectual state, or commonwealth of learning, will soon discover the first ground of disagreement between the two great parties at this time in arms, and may form just conclusions upon the merits of either cause. But the issue or events of this war are not so easy to conjecture at; for the present quarrel is so inflamed by the warm heads of either faction, and the pretensions somewhere or other so exorbitant, as |