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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 upon that subject; which was answered by W. Wotton, B.D., with an Appendix by Dr. Bentley, endeavouring to destroy the credit of Æsop 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, afterwards 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 William 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 of 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, 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 dc generally discover everybody's face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets 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 with long experience, never to apprehend mischief from those whose 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 skillful hand may be soon whipt into froth; but once scummed away, what appears underneath will be fit for nothing but to be thrown to the hogs.

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THE

BATTLE OF THE BOOKS,

ETC., ETC., ETC.

WHOEVER 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 upon plenty. The most ancient and natural grounds of quarrels are lust and avarice; which, though they 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 the politics, we may observe in the republic of Dogs (which in its original seems to be an institution of many), that the whole state is ever in

[* Riches produceth pride; pride is war's ground, &c. Vide Ephem. de Mary Clark, opt. edit.]

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