BOOKS, BY JONATHAN SWIFT; WITH SELECTIONS FROM THE LITERATURE OF THE PHALARIS CONTROVERSY. EDITED BY A. GUTHKELCH, M.A. 'SAY NOT THOU, WHAT IS THE CAUSE THAT THE FORMER DAYS WERE BETTER THAN THESE? FOR THOU DOST NOT INQUIRE WISELY CONCERNING THIS.'-Eccles. vii. 10. 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 quarrel2 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 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.). |