Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/103

Rh darling of his mother, above all her children, and she resolved to go and comfort him. But first, according to the good old custom of deities, she cast about to change her shape, for fear the divinity of her countenance might dazzle his mortal sight, and overcharge the rest of his senses. She therefore gathered up her person into an octavo compass, her body grow white and arid, and split in pieces with dryness, the thick turned into pasteboard, and the thin into paper, upon which her parents and children artfully strewed a black juice, or decoction of gall and soot, in form of letters: her head, and voice, and spleen, kept their primitive form: and that which before was a cover of skin did still continue so; in which guise she marched on towards the Moderns, indistinguishable in shape and dress from the divine B-ntl-y, W-tt-n's dearest friend. "Brave W-tt-n," said the goddess, "why do our troops stand idle here, to spend their present vigour, and opportunity of the day? Away! let us haste to the generals, and advise to give the onset immediately." Having spoke thus, she took the ugliest of her monsters, full glutted from her spleen,