This discourse, as it is unquestionably of the same author, so it seems
to have been written about the same time, with "The Tale of a Tub;" I
mean the year 1697, when the famous dispute was on foot about ancient and
modern learning. The controversy took its rise from an essay of Sir
William Temple's upon that subject; which was answered by W. Wotton,
B.D., with an appendix by Dr. Bentley, endeavouring to destroy the credit
of AEsop and Phalaris for authors, whom Sir William Temple had, in the
essay before mentioned, highly commended. In that appendix the doctor
falls hard upon a new edition of Phalaris, put out by the Honourable
Charles Boyle, now Earl of Orrery, to which Mr. Boyle replied at large
with great learning and wit; and the Doctor voluminously rejoined. In
this dispute the town highly resented to see a person of Sir William
Temple's character and merits roughly used by the two reverend gentlemen
aforesaid, and without any manner of provocation. At length, there
appearing no end of the quarrel, our author tells us that the BOOKS in
St. James's Library, looking upon themselves as parties principally
concerned, took up the controversy, and came to a decisive battle; but
the manuscript, by the injury of fortune or weather, being in several
places imperfect, we cannot learn to which side the victory fell.
I must warn the reader to beware of applying to persons what is here
meant only of books, in the most literal sense. So, when Virgil is
mentioned, we are not to understand the person of a famous poet called by
that name; but only certain sheets of paper bound up in leather,
containing in print the works of the said poet: and so of the rest.