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The Battle of the Books and other Short Pieces by Jonathan Swift
page 8 of 159 (05%)
of Parnassus.

When these books were first admitted into the public 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 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, 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 valour, but
chiefly renowned for his humanity, had been a fierce 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, endeavouring to climb up, was
cruelly obstructed by his own unhappy weight and tendency towards
his centre, 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
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