Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/277

Rh mistook him for a modern; by which means he had time and opportunity to escape to the ancients, just when the spider and the bee were entering into their contest; to which he gave his attention with a world of pleasure; and when it was ended, swore in the loudest key, that in all his life he had never known two cases so parallel, and adapt to each other, as that in the window, and this upon the shelves. The disputants, said he, have admirably managed the dispute between them, have taken in the full strength of all that is to be said on both sides, and exhausted the substance of every argument pro and con. It is but to adjust the reasonings of both to the present quarrel, then to compare and apply the labours and fruits of each, as the bee has learnedly deduced them; and we shall find the conclusion fall plain and close, upon the moderns and us. For, pray gentlemen, was ever any thing so modern as the spider in his air, his turns, and his paradoxes? he argues in the behalf of you his brethren, and himself, with many boastings of his native stock, and great genius; that he spins and spits wholly from himself, and scorns to own any obligation or assistance from without. Then he displays to you his great skill in architecture, and improvement in the mathematicks. To all this, the bee, as an advocate retained by us the ancients, thinks fit to answer; that if one may judge of the great genius or inventions of the moderns, by what they have produced, you will hardly have countenance to bear you out, in boasting of either. Erect your schemes with as much method and skill as you please; . II