is I" (said she) "who give wisdom to infants and idiots; by me
children grow wiser than their parents, by me beaux become
politicians, and schoolboys judges of philosophy; by me sophisters
debate and conclude upon the depths of knowledge; and coffee-house
wits, instinct by me, can correct an author's style, and display
his minutest errors, without understanding a syllable of his matter
or his language; by me striplings spend their judgment, as they do
their estate, before it comes into their hands. It is I who have
deposed wit and knowledge from their empire over poetry, and
advanced myself in their stead. And shall a few upstart Ancients
dare to oppose me? But come, my aged parent, and you, my children
dear, and thou, my beauteous sister; let us ascend my chariot, and
haste to assist our devout Moderns, who are now sacrificing to us a
hecatomb, as I perceive by that grateful smell which from thence
reaches my nostrils."

The goddess and her train, having mounted the chariot, which was
drawn by tame geese, flew over infinite regions, shedding her
influence in due places, till at length she arrived at her beloved
island of Britain; but in hovering over its metropolis, what
blessings did she not let fall upon her seminaries of Gresham and
Covent-garden! And now she reached the fatal plain of St. James's
library, at what time the two armies were upon the point to engage;
where, entering with all her caravan unseen, and landing upon a
case of shelves, now desert, but once inhabited by a colony of
virtuosos, she stayed awhile to observe the posture of both armies.

But here the tender cares of a mother began to fill her thoughts
and move in her breast: for at the head of a troup of Modern
bowmen she cast her eyes upon her son Wotton, to whom the fates had