Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/536

500 believed, was never owned by himself, nor very well proved by any evidence." Surely the doctor has never seen the letters that passed between the dean and Ben Tooke, published at the beginning of the 16th volume of his Works; wherein he not only acknowledges himself the author, but gives directions about the publication of another edition, with an Apology prefixed to it.

With regard to The Battle of the Books, he has revived the old charge of plagiarism against Swift, in the following passage. "The Battle of the Books is so like the Combat des Livres, which the same question concerning the Ancients and Moderns had produced in France, that the improbability of such a coincidence of thoughts without communication, is not, in my opinion, balanced by the anonymous protestation prefixed, in which all knowledge of the French book is peremptorily disowned."

This charge was first made against Swift by Wotton, in the following words: "I have been assured, that the Battle in St. James's Library, is, mutatis mutandis, taken out of a French book, entitled, Combat des Livres, if I misremember not." Thus answered by Swift. "In which passage there are two clauses observable: I have been assured; and, if I misremember not. I desire first to know, whether, if that conjecture proves an utter falsehood, those two clauses will be a sufficient excuse for this worthy critick. The matter is a trifle; but would he venture to pronounce at this rate upon one of greater moment? I know nothing more contemptible in a writer, than the character of a plagiary, which he here fixes at a venture; and this not for a passage, but a whole discourse, taken out from another book, " only