CHAPTER I - A FULL AND TRUE ACCOUNT
OF THE
BATTLE FOUGHT LAST FRIDAY
BETWEEN THE
ANCIENT AND THE MODERN BOOKS
IN SAINT JAMES'S LIBRARY.



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 to plenty. The most ancient and natural grounds 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 politics, we
may observe in the republic of dogs, which in its original seems to
be an institution of 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 runs up