THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS Running Commentary p. 29 title page A / Full and True Account / OF THE / BATTEL / Fought last FRIDAY, / Between the / Antient and the Modern / BOOKS / IN St. JAMES’s LIBRARY] Ehrenpreis notes that Swift gives his story “the appearance of a sensational pamphlet reporting a fresh battle,” making “the narrator a journalist” (Mr Swift, p. 228). Not to mention variations such as “True and Faithful,” the formula “Full and True” is recorded uncounted times in the seventeenth century (ELLIS [2006], p. 208) and seems to have been particularly popular with Swift (Prose Works, II, 162; VI, 139; X, 145; Journal to Stella, ed. Williams, II, 392). Swift owned An Exact and Most Impartial Accompt of the Indictment, Arraignment, Trial, and Judgement … of Twenty-Nine Regicides, the Murtherers of his Late Sacred Majesty of Most Glorious Memory (London: R. Scot et al., 1679 [PASSMANN AND VIENKEN I, 621-22]) by Lord Chancellor Heneage Finch, admittedly not a journalistic pamphlet, its sensational title notwithstanding. Fought last FRIDAY] According to A Full and True Account of a Most Bloody and Horrid Conspiracy against the Life of His Most Sacred Majesty, February the 24th. 1696 (London: Clement Knell, 1696), the discovery of this plot also occurred on a Friday, a dies infaustus, or unlucky, melancholy day (TILLEY F679; SIMPSON AND ROUD s.v.; A Dictionary of Superstitions, eds Iona Opie and Moira Tatem [Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990], s.v.), invariably associated with death and destruction, sometimes called “hanging day,” because the execution of criminals would take place on a Friday (Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, ed. Adrian Room [London: Cassell, 2001], p. 468) but also the day of Adam’s creation and expulsion from Paradise (MORÉRI s.v. “Adam”; Steve Roud, The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland [London: Penguin, 2006], s.v. “Fridays: unlucky”) and that of Christ’s crucifixion. Between the / Antient and the Modern BOOKS / IN St. JAMES’s LIBRARY] See the note on “the BOOKS in St. James’s Library” (p. 31, l. 16). p. 31 dropped-head title THE / BOOKSELLER / TO THE / READER] There is no evidence that this Preface, presumably written after August 1703 when Charles Boyle became Earl of Orrery (see the gloss on “Charles Boyle [now Earl 2 of Orrery],” p. 31, l. 10), is not by Swift (as assumed by CRAIK, p. 419; TEMPLE SCOTT, p. 159n1; GUTHKELCH, p. 251; PRESCOTT, p. 202). BOOKSELLER] In the period from about 1675 to 1750, “the one word ‘bookseller’ served to cover any one who engaged in any one, or any combination, of the three activities … which we designate as wholesale and retail bookselling and publishing.” Thus, in Swift’s day, booksellers could mean publishers in the modern sense, those who, “having the legal right of reproduction, cause books to be printed and distributed for sale” (Michael Treadwell, “London Trade Publishers, 1675-1750,” The Library, 6th ser., 4 [1982], 101-34), as well as printers, as this advertisement demonstrates: “The Undertakers of this Journal, resolving to make it as Compleat as possible, intend at the End of each succeeding Month to add the Titles of all Books whatsoever publish’d in England … The Booksellers are therefore desir’d to send in the Titles of what Books they Print, as soon as publish’d, to any of the Undertakers” (History of the Works of the Learned, 2 [1700], 394). In George Farquhar’s The Constant Couple, Clincher Sr thinks of an agreement “with a Bookseller about Printing an Account of [his] Journey through France to Italy” (The Complete Works, ed. Charles Stonehill, 2 vols [New York: Gordian Press, 1967], I, 144). p. 31, ll. 1-2 THE following Discourse, as it is unquestionably of the same Author] That is, the author of A Tale of a Tub, published together with The Battle of the Books, as is evident from the title page. See also Textual Introduction, p. □. p. 31, ll. 3-4 I mean, the Year 1697, when the famous Dispute was on Foot, about Antient and Modern Learning] Initiated in 1690, the controversy peaked in 1698 and 1699 (see the bibliography of pamphlets in Richard Bentley, The Works [1836-1838], ed. Alexander Dyce, 3 vols [Hildesheim and New York: Georg Olms, 1971], I, xi-xix; GUTHKELCH, p. 297-312; A. T. Bartholomew and J. W. Clark, Richard Bentley, D.D.: A Bibliography of his Works and of All the Literature Called Forth by his Acts or his Writings [Cambridge: Bowes and Bowes, 1908], pp. 26-41; Alexandre Maurocordato, La Critique classique en Angleterre de la Restauration à la mort de Joseph Addison [Paris: Didier, 1964], pp. 701-4). p. 31, l. 5 an Essay of Sir William Temple’s] “An Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning,” Miscellanea: The Second Part (London: by T. M. for Ri. and Ra. Simpson, 1690), pp. 1-72. 3 p. 31, ll. 5-6 which was answer’d by W. Wotton, B.D. with an Appendix by Dr. Bently] The first edition of Wotton’s Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning (London: by J. Leake for Peter Buck, 1694), published on 2 July 1694, responded to Temple’s essay, but did not yet contain Bentley’s Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris, added to the second edition of 1697 and published on 15 July (Bartholomew and Clark, Richard Bentley, pp. 27-28 [*94]). For a full analysis of Wotton’s Reflections, see Marie-Luise Spieckermann, William Wottons “Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning” im Kontext der englischen “Querelle des anciens et des modernes” (Frankfurt am Main and Bern: Peter Lang, 1981). p. 31, ll. 9-10 a new Edition of Phalaris, put out by the Honorable Charles Boyle] Phalaridis Agrigentinorum Tyranni epistolæ: ex MSS recensuit, versione, annotationibus, & vita insuper authoris donavit Car. Boyle (Oxford: Johannes Crooke, 1695), published 1 January (Bartholomew and Clark, Richard Bentley, pp. 27 [*91]). “The prefix ‘Honourable’ (Hon.) is given to sons of peers below the rank of Marquess” (OED). p. 31, l. 10 (now Earl of Orrery)] Charles succeeded his elder brother Lionel as Earl of Orrery in August 1703 (G. E. C., X, 178-80). p. 31, ll. 10-11 to which Mr. Boyle replyed at large] The first and second editions of Dr Bentley’s Dissertations on the Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of Æsop Examin’d came out in the same year (London: Tho. Bennet, 1698), a third in 1699 (Bartholomew and Clark, Richard Bentley, pp. 29 and 32 [*97, *98, *107]). The rumour that Boyle’s Examination had been authored by a group of Christ Church wits coming to his rescue under the leadership of Francis Atterbury, Boyle’s tutor, was disseminated soon after its appearance (see the note on “Boyl, clad in a suit of Armor which had been given him by all the Gods,” p. 51, ll. 27- 28). p. 31, ll. 11-12 the Doctor, voluminously, rejoyned] A Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris: With an Answer to the Objections of the Honourable Charles Boyle (London: J. H. for Henry Mortlock and John Hartley, 1699). This is the much enlarged edition of Bentley’s Dissertation, first published on 23 February1698/9 as an appendix to the second edition of Wotton’s Reflections in July 1697, and reprinted several times in the following years (Bartholomew and Clark, Richard Bentley, pp. 32-33 [*109]). Bentley’s copy of Boyle’s 1695 edition 4 of Phalaris, bearing his holograph marginalia on the text, is in the British Library (shelfmark 682.b.7). p. 31, ll. 12-13 In this Dispute, the Town highly resented to see a Person of Sir William Temple’s Character and Merits, roughly used] After 1698 when Boyle’s Examination was published, a controversy about a question of historical facticity, the spuriousness of the epistles of Phalaris, turned into an issue of moral character. Among the many who resented “a certain great Man … universally reverenced for every good Quality” unfairly treated (A Tale of a Tub, p. G), Tom Brown happily denounced Bentley as “a stiff haughty Grammarian” and “Arrogant Pedant,” whom “all the Polite Judges in Europe were pleased to see worsted and foiled by a Young Gentleman” (Familiar and Courtly Letters, 3rd ed. [London: S. B., 1701], pp. 133-34), and he was vigorously supported by the anonymous pamphleteer, possibly Atterbury, of A Short Account of Dr Bentley’s Humanity and Justice ([London: Thomas Bennet, 1699], pp. 1-4, and passim), the anonymous author of A Letter to the Reverend Dr Bentley, upon the Controversy betwixt Him and Mr Boyle ([London: J. Nutt, 1699], pp. 21-22), as well as A Short Review of the Controversy between Mr. Boyle and Dr. Bentley, which is also attributed to Atterbury (Bartholomew and Clark, Richard Bentley, p. 38 [*129]) and which has a tellingly sarcastic subtitle: With Suitable Reflections upon … the Dr’s. Advantagious Character of Himself (London: A. Baldwin, 1701). p. 31, ll. 16-20 the BOOKS in St. James’s Library, looking upon themselves as Parties principally concerned, took up the Controversy, and came to a decisive Battel; But, the Manuscript, by the Injury of Fortune, or Weather, being in several Places imperfect, we cannot learn to which side the Victory fell] St James’s Palace originally housed two libraries: the Royal Library, founded by Edward VI, and the Queen’s Library (Edgar Sheppard, Memorials of St James’s Palace, 2 vols [London and New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1894], I, 372-80). As becomes evident from two later references, the Battle of the Books is set in the Royal Library (see the note on “there was a strange Confusion of Place among all the Books in the Library,” p.