by Regiomontanus and Wilkins. The reft were a confused multitude, led by Scotus, Aquinas, and Bellarmine; of mighty bulk and ftature, but without either arms, courage, or difcipline. In the last place, came infinite fwarms of Calones 1, a diforderly rout led by L'Eftrange; rogues and raggamuffins, that follow the camp for nothing but the plunder; all without coats || to cover them. THE army of the antients was much fewer in number. Homer led the borse, and Pindar the light borse; Euclid was chief engineer; Plato and Aristotle commanded the bowmen; Herodotus and Livy the foot; Hippocrates the dragoons; the allies led by Voffius, and Temple brought up the rear.

ALL things violently tending to a decifive battle, fame, who much frequented, and had a large apartment formerly affigned her in the regal library, fed up ftrait to Jupiter, to whom she delivered a faithful account of all that paffed between the two parties below. (For, among the gods, he always tells truth.) Jove in great concern, convokes a council in the milky way. The fenate affembled he declares the occafion of conveening them; a bloody battle juft impended between two mighty armies of antient and modern creatures, called Books, wherein the celestial interest was but too deeply concerned. Momus, the patron of the moderns, made an excellent speech in their favour : which was anfwered by Pallas, the protectress of the antients. The affembly was divided in their affections; when Jupiter commanded the book of fate to be laid before him. Immediately were brought by Mercury three large volumes in folio, containing memoirs of all things paft, prefent, and to come. The clafps were of filver, double gilt; the covers of celestial turkey

Calones. By calling this diforderly rout calones the author points both his fatyr and contempt against all forts of mercenary fcriblers, who write as they are commanded by the leaders and patrons of fedition, faction, corruption, and every evil work : they are ftiled calones because they are the meanest and most defpicable of all writers, as the calones, whether belonging to the army or private families, were the meanest of all flaves or fervants whatfoever.

Thefe are pamphlets, which are not bound or covered.

turkey-leather, and the paper fuch as here on earth might almost pass for vellum. Jupiter having filently read the decree, would communicate the import to none, but presently shut up the book.

WITHOUT the doors of this affembly, there attended a vast number of light, nimble gods, menial fervants to Jupiter. These are his miniftring inftruments in all affairs below. They travel in à caravan, more or less together, and are fastened to each other like a link of galley-flaves, by a light chain, which paffes from them to Jupiter's great toe. And yet in receiving or delivering a meffage, they may never approach above the loweft step of his throne, where he and they whifper to each other thro' a long hollow trunk. These deities are called by mortal men, Accidents, or Events; but the gods call them Second Causes. Jupiter having delivered his message to a certain number of these divinities, they flew immediately down to the pinacle of the regal library, and, confulting a few minutes, entered unfeen, and difpofed the parties according to their orders.

MEAN while, Momus, fearing the worft, and calling to mind an antient prophecy, which bore no very good face to his children the moderns, bent his flight to the region of a malignant deity, called Criticifm. She dwelt on the top of a fnowy mountain in Nova Zembla. There Momus found her extended in her den, upon the fpoils of numberless volumes half devoured.. At her right hand fat Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; at her left Pride, her mother, dreffing her the fcraps of paper herself had torn. There was Opinion, her fifter, light of foot, hood-winked, and headstrong; yet giddy, and perpetually turning. About her played her children, Noife, and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Pofitiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-manners. The goddess

up in

herfelf had claws like a cat; her head, and ears, and voice, resembled those of an ass; her teeth fallen out before; her eyes turned inward, as if fhe looked only upon herself; her diet was the overflowing of her own gall; her Spleen was fo large, as to ftand prominent like a dug of the first rate, nor wanted excrefcences in form of teats, at which a crew of ugly monfters were greedily fucking; VOL. I

P

and

H

and, what is wonderful to conceive, the bulk of fpleen increased fafter than the fucking could diminish it. "Goddefs, (faid Momus,) can you fit idle here, while our devout worshippers, the moderns, are this minute entering into a cruel battle, and, perhaps, now lying under the fwords of their enemies? who then "hereafter will ever facrifice, or build altars to our divi"nities? hafte therefore to the British ifle, and, if pof fible, prevent their deftruction; while I make fa"Єtions among the gods, and gain them over to our party,"

tr

MOMU's having thus delivered himself, ftaid not for an anfwer, but left the goddess to her own refentment. Up fhe role in a rage; and, as it is the form upon fuch occafions, began a foliloquy. " 'Tis I, (faid the) who દ give wisdom to infants and idiots; by me children

**

grow wifer than their parents; by me beaux become "politicians, and fchool-boys judges of philofophy: by me fophifters debate, and conclude upon the depths "of knowledge; and coffee-houfe-wits inftinct by me, can correct an author's ftyle, and difplay his minuteft errors, without understanding a fyllable of his matter or his language; by me ftriplings fpend their judgment, as they do their eftate, before it comes into "their hands. 'Tis I who have deposed wit and know"ledge from their empire over poetry, and advanced my"felf in their ftead. And fhall a few upftart antients

666

dare to oppofe me?-But, come, my aged parents,

and you my children dear, and thou my beauteous "fifter; let us afcend my chariot, and hafte to affift_our "devout moderns, who are now facrificing to us a beca"tomb, as I perceive by that grateful smell which from "thence reaches my noftrils "

THE goddess and her train having mounted the chariot, which was drawn by tame geefe, flew over infinite regions, fhedding her influence in due places, till, at length, the arrived at her beloved ifland of Britain. But, in hovering over its metropolis, what bleffings did fhe not let fall upon her feminaries of Gresham and ↑ Coventgarden!

See the notes, p. 25.

garden! And now fhe reached the fatal plain of St. James's library, at what time the two armies were upon the point to engage; where entering with all her caravan unfeen, and landing upon a cafe of fhelves, now defart, but once inhabited by a colony of virtuojo's, the staid a while to obferve the pofture of both armies.

But here the tender cares of a mother began to fill her thoughts, and move in her breaft For, at the head of a troop of modern bowmen, the caft her eyes upon her fon Wotton; to whom the fates had affigned a very short thread; Wotton, a young hero, whom an unknown father of mortal race begot by ftoln embraces with this goddefs. He was the darling of his mother, above all her children; and the refolved to go and comfort him, But first, according to the good old custom of deities, she caft about to change her fhape for fear the divinity of her countenance might dazzle his mortal fight, and overcharge the reft of his fenfes. She therefore gathered up her perfon into an octavo compafs. Her body grew white and arid, and split in pieces with dryness; the thick turned into paste-board, and the thin into paper; upon which her parents and children artfully ftrowed a black juice or decoction of gall and foot, in form of letters; her head, and voice, and fpleen, kept their primitive form; and that which before was a cover of fkin, did ftill continue fo.

66.

IN which guife fhe marched on towards the moderns, undistinguishable in fhape and drefs from the divine Bentley, Wotton's dearest friend. "Brave Wotton, " (faid the goddess) why do our troops ftand idle here, "to spend their prefent vigour, and opportunity of the "day? Away, let us hafte to the Generals, and advise "to give the onset immediately." Having fpoke thus, fhe took the ugliest of her monfters, full glutted from her fpleen, and flung it invisibly into his mouth; which flying ftraight up into his head, fqueezed out his eyeballs, gave him a diftorted look, and half overturned his brain. Then the privately ordered two of her. beloved children, Dulness and Ill-manners, clofely to attend his perfon in all encounters. Having thus accoutred him,

fhe vanished in a mift; and the hero perceived it was the goddess his mother.

THE deftined hour of fate being now arrived, the fight began; whereof, before I dare adventure to make a particular defcription, I must, after the example of other authors, petition for a hundred tongues, and mouths, and hands, and pens; which would all be too little to perform fo immenfe a work. Say, goddess, that prefideft over hiftory, who it was that firft advanced in the field of battle. Paracelfus, at the head of his dragoons, obferving Galen in the adverfe wing, darted his javelin with a mighty force; which the brave antient received upon his fhield, the point breaking in the fecond fold.

Hic pauca

defunt.

They bore the wounded Aga + on their fhields to his chariot.

Defunt nonnulla.

THEN Ariftotle obferving Bacon advance with a furious mien, drew his bow to the head, and let fly his arrow; which miffed the valiant modern, and went hizzing over his head. But Des Cartes it hit: the steel point quickly found a defect in his head piece; it pierced the leather, and the pasteboard, and went in at his right eye. The torture of the pain whirled the valiant bowman round, till death, like a star of fuperior influence, drew him into his own vortex.

when Homer appeared at the head of the cavalry, mounted on a furious horse, with difficulty managed by the rider himfelf, but which no other mortal durft ap

proach

Dr. Harvey, fee the note p. 143. It was not thought proper to name his antagonist, but only to intimate, that he was wounded, other moderns are spared by the hiatus that follows, probably for fimilar reafons.