dispute of precedency, talked so loud of coming to a battle, that
Sir William Temple happened to overhear them, and gave immediate
intelligence to the Ancients, who thereupon drew up their scattered
troops together, resolving to act upon the defensive; upon which,
several of the Moderns fled over to their party, and among the rest
Temple himself. This Temple, having been educated and long
conversed among the Ancients, was, of all the Moderns, their
greatest favourite, and became their greatest champion.

Things were at this crisis when a material accident fell out. For
upon the highest corner of a large window, there dwelt a certain
spider, swollen up to the first magnitude by the destruction of
infinite numbers of flies, whose spoils lay scattered before the
gates of his palace, like human bones before the cave of some
giant. The avenues to his castle were guarded with turnpikes and
palisadoes, all after the modern way of fortification. After you
had passed several courts you came to the centre, wherein you might
behold the constable himself in his own lodgings, which had windows
fronting to each avenue, and ports to sally out upon all occasions
of prey or defence. In this mansion he had for some time dwelt in
peace and plenty, without danger to his person by swallows from
above, or to his palace by brooms from below; when it was the
pleasure of fortune to conduct thither a wandering bee, to whose
curiosity a broken pane in the glass had discovered itself, and in
he went, where, expatiating a while, he at last happened to alight
upon one of the outward walls of the spider's citadel; which,
yielding to the unequal weight, sunk down to the very foundation.
Thrice he endeavoured to force his passage, and thrice the centre
shook. The spider within, feeling the terrible convulsion,
supposed at first that nature was approaching to her final