Jonathan Swift.

1667-1745.

THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS.

(1704.)

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 5 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 10 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 the politics, we may observe in the Republic of Dogs (which, in its original, seems to be an institution of 15 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 20 runs up to a tyranny. Again, if we look upon any of these 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 25 makes no alteration in the case), hath 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. 5 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 not to admit the least overtures of accommodation. This quarrel first began, as I have heard it 10 affirmed by an old dweller in the neighborhood, about a small spot of ground, lying and being upon one of the two tops of the hill Parnassus; the highest and largest of which had, it seems, been time out of mind in quiet possession of certain tenants, called the Ancients, and the other was held by the 15 Moderns. But these, disliking their present station, sent certain ambassadors to the Ancients, complaining of a great nuisance, how the height of that part of Parnassus quite spoiled the prospect of theirs, especially towards the east; and therefore, to avoid a war, offered them the choice of this 20 alternative either that the Ancients would please to remove themselves and their effects down to the lower summity, which the Moderns would graciously surrender to them, and advance in their place; or else the said Ancients will give leave to the Moderns to come with shovels and mattocks, and level the 25 said hill as low as they shall think it convenient. To which the Ancients made answer how little they expected such a message as this from a colony whom they had admitted, out of their own free grace, to so near a neighborhood; that, as to their own seat, they were aborigines of it, and therefore to 30 talk with them of a removal or surrender was a language they did not understand; that if the height of the hill on their side shortened the prospect of the Moderns, it was a disadvantage they could not help, but desired them to consider whether that injury (if it be any) were not largely recompensed by 35 the shade and shelter it afforded them; that, as to the levelling or digging down, it was either folly or ignorance to propose it, if they did or did not know how that side of the hill was an entire rock, which would break their tools and hearts,

without any damage to itself; that they would therefore advise the Moderns rather to raise their own side of the hill than dream of pulling down that of the Ancients, to the former of which they would not only give license but also largely contribute. All this was rejected by the Moderns with much 5 indignation, who still insisted upon one of the two expedients; and so this difference broke out into a long and obstinate war, maintained on the one part by resolution, and by the courage of certain leaders and allies; but, on the other, by the greatness of their number, upon all defeats affording 10 continual recruits. In this quarrel whole rivulets of ink have been exhausted, and the virulence of both parties enormously augmented. Now, it must here be understood that ink is the great missive weapon in all battles of the learned, which, conveyed through a sort of engine called a quill, infinite num- 15 bers of these are darted at the enemy by the valiant on each side, with equal skill and violence, as if it were an engagement of porcupines. This malignant liquor was compounded, by the engineer who invented it, of two ingredients, which are gall and copperas; by its bitterness and venom to suit, in 20 some degree, as well as to foment, the genius of the combatants. And as the Grecians, after an engagement, when they could not agree about the victory, were wont to set up trophies on both sides, the beaten party being content to be at the same expense, to keep itself in countenance (a laudable 25 and ancient custom, happily revived of late, in the art of war), so the learned, after a sharp and bloody dispute, do, on both sides, hang out their trophies too, whichever comes by the worst. These trophies have largely inscribed on them the merits of the cause, a full impartial account of such a 30 battle, and how the victory fell clearly to the party that set them up. They are known to the world under several names; as disputes, arguments, rejoinders, brief considerations, answers, replies, remarks, reflections, objections, confutations. For a very few days they are fixed up in all public places, 35 either by themselves or their representatives, for passengers to gaze at; whence the chiefest and largest are removed to certain magazines they call libraries, there to remain in a

quarter purposely assigned them, and from thenceforth begin to be called Books of Controversy.

In these books is wonderfully instilled and preserved the spirit of each warrior while he is alive; and after his death 5 his soul transmigrates there to inform them. This at least is the more common opinion; but I believe it is with libraries as with other cemeteries, where some philosophers affirm that a certain spirit, which they call brutum hominis, hovers over the monument, till the body is corrupted and turns to dust or 10 to worms, but then vanishes or dissolves. So, we may say, a restless spirit haunts over every book, till dust or worms have seized upon it-which to some may happen in a few days, but to others later; and therefore, books of controversy, being, of all others, haunted by the most disorderly spirits, have always 15 been confined in a separate lodge from the rest, and, for fear of a mutual violence against each other, it was thought prudent by our ancestors to bind them to the peace with strong iron chains. Of which invention the original occasion was this: when the works of Scotus first came out, they were car20 ried to a certain library and had lodgings appointed them; but this author was no sooner settled than he went to visit his master Aristotle; and there both concerted together to seize Plato by main force, and turn him out from his ancient station among the divines, where he had peaceably dwelt near 25 eight hundred years. The attempt succeeded, and the two usurpers have reigned ever since in his stead; but, to maintain. quiet for the future, it was decreed that all polemics of the larger size should be held fast with a chain.

By this expedient the public peace of libraries might cer30 tainly have been preserved if a new species of controversial books had not arose of late years, instinct with a most malignant spirit, from the war above mentioned between the learned, about the higher summity of Parnassus.

When these books were first admitted into the public 35 libraries, I remember to have said, upon occasion, to several persons concerned, how I was sure they would create broils wherever they came, unless a world of care were taken; and therefore I advised that the champions of each side should be

coupled together, or otherwise mixed, that, like the blending of contrary poisons, their malignity might be employed among themselves. And it seems I was neither an ill prophet nor an ill counsellor; for it was nothing else but the neglect of this caution which gave occasion to the terrible fight that 5 happened on Friday last, between the Ancient and Modern books, in the King's Library. Now, because the talk of this battle is so fresh in everybody's mouth, and the expectation of the town so great to be informed in the particulars, I, being possessed of all qualifications requisite in an historian, 10 and retained by neither party, have resolved to comply with the urgent importunity of my friends by writing down a full impartial account thereof.

The guardian of the regal library, a person of great valor, but chiefly renowned for his humanity, had been a fierce 15 champion for the Moderns; and, in an engagement upon Parnassus, had vowed, with his own hands to knock down two of the Ancient chiefs, who guarded a small pass on the superior rock; but, endeavoring to climb up, was cruelly obstructed by his own unhappy weight and tendency towards his centre 20 -a quality to which those of the Modern party are extremely subject, for, being light-headed, they have in speculation a wonderful agility and conceive nothing too high for them to mount, but in reducing to practice discover a mighty pressure about their posteriors and their heels. Having thus failed 25 in his design, the disappointed champion bore a cruel rancor to the Ancients, which he resolved to gratify by showing all marks of his favor to the books of their adversaries and lodging them in the fairest apartments; when, at the same time, whatever book had the boldness to own itself for an advocate 30 of the Ancients was buried alive in some obscure corner, and threatened, upon the least displeasure, to be turned out of doors. Besides, it so happened that about this time there. was a strange confusion of place among all the books in the library, for which several reasons were assigned. Some im- 35 puted it to a great heap of learned dust, which a perverse wind blew off from a shelf of Moderns into the keeper's eyes. Others affirmed he had a humor to pick the worms out of the