Boccaccio (1313-1375), the Italian novelist and poet, author of the Decameron.—19. Provençal: the language of Provence, formerly a province in southeastern France; Dryden is in error, the French dialect which influenced English in Chaucer's day being that of Paris. 37.-7. "Versus inopes," etc." Verses devoid of substance, and melodious trifles " (Horace, De Arte Poetica, 322).-11. a religious lawyer: Jeremy Collier, in his Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698). 66 38.-34. were: an error for was." 39.-6. "Impiger," etc.: Horace, De Arte Poetica, 121.-9. “quo fata,” etc.—“ Where the fates drag us back and forth, let us follow " (Æneid, V. 709).-17. Longinus: a Greek critic (210 ?273 A. D.), to whom is attributed a famous treatise on the Sublime.-22. machine: the reference is to Iris going as a messenger from Zeus to the Trojans, to rouse them to battle (Iliad, II. 768 ff.); such supernatural agency in a poem was called the 'machinery." 66 40.-6. Persius: a Roman satiric poet (34-62 A. D.).—7. Manilius: an obscure Roman poet, who lived probably at the time of Augustus; he left a poem, Astronomica.-15. Grizild=Griselda; the subject of The Clerk's Tale in Chaucer; Dryden errs-the story was really taken by Petrarch from Boccaccio.-31. The Cock and the Fox-The Nonne Preestes Tale. 66 41.-13. Ennius: one of the earliest Latin poets; he died in 169 B. C., nearly 200 years before Ovid.-28. "inopem me," etc.= Power has made me powerless" (Ovid, Metamorphoses, III. 466). -32. Bartholomew Fair: a play by Ben Jonson (1573-1637).—36. machines contrivances, devices. 42.-3. had would have.-12. turn of words: repetition of words, with slight variations; see 87, 30, 88, 3-9.—33. one of our late great poets: Abraham Cowley (1618-1667). 43.-14. nimis poeta " too much a poet ; the passage referred to is in Martial (Epigrams, III. xliv.), not in Catullus.-17-18. "auribus," etc.—“ accommodated to the ears of that time"; the words (says Mr. Christie, in the Globe edition of Dryden's poems) are a misquotation of a phrase in Tacitus's Dialogue on Orators. -23-34. The reference is to a reprint of Thomas Speght's edition of Chaucer, in 1687; throughout the passage Dryden is unjust to Chaucer's versification because, like most of his contemporaries, he is ignorant of the correct pronunciation of Middle English.-30. verse which we call heroic: the pentameter couplet, used in the so-called "heroic plays" that were popular in Dryden's day. 44.-13. admired wondered at.-26. Piers Plowman: not Langland's poem, but a spurious Canterbury tale. 45.-11. Scandalum Magnatum="offense against the great"; an old law term.-23. a king of England and an archbishop of Canterbury: Henry II. (1133-1189) and Thomas à Becket.—33. Prior læsit-" He hurt (me) first." 46.-16. Baptista Porta: an Italian physiognomist (1543?-1615). 47.-19-20. "Totum hoc," etc." All this I wish unsaid."—25. The lines as quoted by Dryden afford an additional reason for his poor opinion of Chaucer's verse; the text he used was very corrupt, as may be seen by comparison with some of the same lines as given in Skeat's edition of Chaucer (Oxford, 1894): — "For this ye knowen al-so wel as I, Who-so shal telle a tale after a man, He moot reherce, as ny as ever he can, Everich a word, if it be in his charge, Al speke he never so rudeliche and large." 49.-27. Milbourn: see 53, 17. 50.-9-11. Multa renascentur," etc.: Horace, De Arte Poetica, 70-72; Ben Jonson translates: 66 "Much phrase that now is dead shall be revived, If custom please; at whose disposing will 51.-11. "Facile est," etc.: "It is easy to add to what has already been invented."-17. de Scudery: a French novelist (1607-1701). 52.-16. argument subject, theme.-23. Palamon and Arcite =The Knightes Tale.-30. action: Dryden loosely uses the word for two things, (1) the action of an epic poem in general, as to the duration of which Aristotle in his Poetics laid down no law, (2) the action in Palamon and Arcite, the main events of which fill only a year, the other six years or so being passed over lightly. 33. laurel: Chaucer, like Dryden, was poet laureate. 53.-1-3. " Dioneo," " etc." Dioneo and the grand lady Fiametta sang together of Arcite and Palamon." 54.-14. Arthurs, i. e., Doctor Blackmore's two epics, Prince Arthur and King Arthur.-19-20. Dares, etc.: Æneid, V. 400 ff.; Dryden translates: 66 He said: and, rising at the word, he threw Dares himself was daunted at the sight, Renounc'd his challenge, and refused to fight." 55.-7. Condé: the great French general's drawn battle with the Dutch, at Senneffe, in 1674, was doubtless still fresh in the memory of Dryden's readers.-8-9. "ab abuso," etc.-" from abuse to use is not a valid consequence."-15-16. "Demetri," 66 etc.: Horace, Satires, I. x. 90-91:-' Demetrius, and you, Tigellius, I bid whine among the easy chairs of your female disciples.” JONATHAN SWIFT. THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS. This satire was begun in 1697, when Swift was private secretary to Sir William Temple. It was occasioned by a controversy among the learned over the relative merits of ancient and of modern authors and over the genuineness of The Letters of Phalaris, purporting to be written by the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris in the sixth century B. C. Temple, replying to a French work, in An Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning (1692) had argued for the superiority of the ancient and for the genuineness of the Letters. William Wotton in Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning (1694) took the position that in certain respects, particularly in science, the moderns had beaten the ancients. In 1695 a new edition of The Letters of Phalaris appeared, edited by a young scholar, Charles Boyle, who in his preface attacked the great classical scholar, Richard Bentley, librarian of the King's Library in St. James's Palace, London, for his alleged discourtesy in not allowing sufficient time to examine a manuscript of the Letters. In an appendix to the second edition of Wotton's book, in 1697, Bentley replied roughly to Boyle, and gave proof of the spuriousness of the Letters. At this point Swift came to the aid of his patron Temple with The Battle of the Books, which, although worthless as argument, doubtless soothed the feelings of Temple by its vigorous ridicule of his opponents. 58.-36. their representatives, i. e., their title-pages. 59.-5. inform-animate.-8. brutum hominis: a kind of lower soul, with something earthy about it and reluctant to forsake its fleshly habitation; cf. Comus, 463-475, and Plato's Phædo, § 81.-18. chains: in old libraries the books were chained to the shelves to prevent theft.-19. Scotus: Duns Scotus, the famous Scotch dialectician and theologian of the thirteenth century. 60.-17-18. two of the ancient chiefs: Phalaris and Aesop, whose reputed works Bentley declared spurious. 61.-8. Seven Wise Masters: a collection of Eastern tales. 62.-28. fortification: the advocates of modern learning argued that the modern art of fortification was superior to the ancient.-37. expatiating walking about. 63.-7. his subjects: according to one interpretation “Beelzebub " means god of flies." 66 65.-24. turned himself to a thousand forms: an allusion to Æsop's animal fables. 67.-5. horse, i. e., epic poets.-7. Wither: a minor poet (15881667), little esteemed in Swift's day; Swift doubtless took peculiar pleasure in coupling him with Dryden, who had said, after seeing some of Swift's verses, "Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet." light horse, i. e., lyric poets.-8. Cowley: an English poet (1618-1667), of great contemporary fame. Despreaux: Boileau (1636-1711), a French poet and critic, whose repute was great among the English writers of Swift's day.9. bowmen, i. e., philosophers. Descartes, Gassendi, and Hobbes: French and English philosophers of the seventeenth century; the praise of their flights of thought is partly satirical, for Swift had a poor opinion of philosophy.-12. Evander: apparently a mistake for Acestes, whose arrow, in the contest described in the Æneid (V. 525 ff.), took fire from the rapidity of its flight.-13. Paracelsus: a Swiss chemist and physician (14931541). stinkpot-flingers: as a means of disconcerting and pos sibly suffocating the enemy, pots containing asafetida and other offensive materials were formerly used in war.-14. Rhætia: a Roman province, including part of the Tyrol, where Paracelsus spent a portion of his wandering life.-15. dragoons, i. e., writers on medicine and surgery.-16. Harvey: William Harvey (1578-1657), who discovered the circulation of the blood.-agacommander; a Turkish word.-20. heavy-armed foot, i. e., historians.-21-22. Guicciardini, Davila, and Polydore Virgil were Italians; Mariana was a Spaniard; Buchanan, a Scotchman; Camden, an Englishman.-23. engineers, i. e., mathematicians. Regiomontanus: Johann Müller (1436-1476), a German astronomer and mathematician (called Regiomontanus from his birthplace, Königsberg). Wilkins: Bishop Wilkins (1614-1672), an English astronomer, one of the founders of the Royal Society.24-25. Scotus, Aquinas, and Bellarmine: theologians, the first a Scotchman, the other two Italians; Scotus and Aquinas were of the thirteenth century, Bellarmine of the sixteenth.-27. calones soldiers' servants; here they stand for unbound pamphlets.28. L'Estrange: a journalist and pamphleteer, licenser of the press under Charles II. and James II.-33. Hippocrates: a Greek physician (460 ?-377 ? B. C.), the "Father of Medicine."—34. Vossius: a famous Dutch classical scholar (1577-1649). 68.-7. Momus: the Greek god of laughter and mockery; according to Hesiod (Theogony, 214), he was the son of Night, which is perhaps the main reason why Swift makes him the patron of the benighted Moderns, in contrast to the Ancients' patron, Pallas, goddess of wisdom and light; but there is apparently also an allusion to the supposed satiric spite of modern writers (cf. the spider's venom and the bee's sweetness and light," 65, 7, 66, 32), and to the claim that they excel in humor.-37. Nova Zembla: the kind of criticism that Swift is satirizing may naturally be thought of as dwelling in polar cold and darkness; perhaps there is a reference also to the fact that most modern literature is the product of northern countries. 66 66 66 70.-11. Gresham: Gresham College, in London, where the Royal Society met. Covent Garden: an area in London (once a convent garden), which abounded in taverns and coffeehouses where the wits and writers often assembled; the famous Will's Coffee-house, where Dryden held his court as king of English letters, was in Covent Garden. 71.-18. Galen: a Greek physician of the second century A. D.; for centuries his authority was undisputed, but Paracelsus attacked it.-21-22. Hic pauca desunt="Here a few [lines] are missing."-24-25. Desunt nonnulla-" Several [lines] are missing."-33. his own vortex: Descartes explained the formation of the universe by a theory of vortices in the matter of which it is composed.-34-35. Ingens hiatus hic in MS.=" A great gap here in the manuscript." 72.-3. Gondibert: a poem (1651) by William D'Avenant; the "staid, sober gelding' " is probably the stanza, which is like that of Gray's Elegy.-11. Denham: John Denham, best known by his poem Cooper's Hill (1642).-16. Wesley: Samuel Wesley, father of John and Charles Wesley, and a small poet.-17. Perrault: Charles Perrault (1628-1703), a leader in France in the controversy over the relative merits of the ancients and the moderns; he collected and rewrote some charming fairy tales, including Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood.-18. Fontenelle: Bernard de Fontenelle (1657-1757), another leader in the controversy in France.-38. the lady in a lobster: "the triturating apparatus in the stomach of a lobster;- -so called from a fancied resemblance to a seated female figure (Webster's International Dictionary). 99 73.—3-4. Dryden, in a long harangue: a reference to the long Dedication to Dryden's translation of the Eneid.—15-16. Alter hiatus in MS." Another gap in the manuscript."—17. Lucan: a Roman poet (39-65 A. D.), author of a spirited but uneven epic, Pharsalia, on the war between Cæsar and Pompey.— 20. Blackmore: see 54, 9, and the note on 54, 14.-29-30 spurs bridle: Blackmore as a poet needed animation, and Lucan restraint.-31. Pauca desunt=“A few [lines] are missing." 32. Creech: Thomas Creech (1659-1700), a translator of the classics, including Horace.-37. Ogleby: John Ogleby (1600-1676), a small poet and a translator of the classics; called Creech's literary father, as being a small author of the preceding generation. -38. Oldham: John Oldham (1653-1683), a minor satiric poet. 74.-1. Afra: Mrs. Afra Behn (1640-1689), a writer of somewhat loose plays and novels, and some lyric poetry.-5. imitating: Cowley introduced into English poetry the so-called CowleyPindaric ode, in very irregular metre, which was mistakenly thought to reproduce the form of Pindar's odes.—16. given him by Venus: Swift thought that Cowley's love poems were his best claim to immortality, but they have long been out of favor.37-38. Hiatus valde deflendus in MS." A greatly to be deplored gap in the manuscript." 66 75.-9. Etesian wind: The term was especially applied by Greek and Roman writers to the winds which blow from the north during the summer months" (Century Dictionary); it is used here merely to give a classical effect.-13. atramentous-inky.-35. presumptuous dogs, the Ancients: for the sake of carrying out the satiric allegory Swift is here outrageously unfair; Bentley was a profound admirer of the ancient writers and devoted his life to the study of them. 76.-3. Scaliger: Julius Scaliger (1484-1558), an Italian, and Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609), his son, were both famous classical scholars; probably Swift refers to the elder, for Bentley had recently defended the younger.-23. Aldrovandus's tomb, i. e., the place in the library (thought of as a cemetery; see 59, 7) where stand the books of the Italian naturalist, Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605).—35. in sphere direct, i. e., by rays proceeding straight from their source. 77.-17. in his bull: the legend is that Phalaris roasted his enemies in a brazen bull. 78.-5. to rest: Temple had returned from political life, and was living in lettered leisure on his estate, Moor Park.-28. the shape of the allusion is probably to Francis Atterbury, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, who wrote a good deal of Boyle's reply to Bentley, in 1698. 80.-8. Desunt cætera-"The rest are missing." |