Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/54

xlvi royaume d'Éloquence, &c. The book appeared in 1658 and is an account of the war between le prince Rhétorique and le capitaine Galimatias, in which the troops are figures of speech and the leaders great writers. There seems to be nothing in the book which could have suggested anything to Swift for use in the Battle.

It has been suggested also that Swift took the idea of the Battle from Chant V of Boileau's poem Le Lutrin (1674). The combatants in Le Lutrin use books as missiles; in the Battle the books themselves fight—plainly a different thing.

On the whole question one may say that the only book to which Swift is indebted in the Battle is Temple's Essay: there is not sufficient evidence to show that he took hints from any other book, except perhaps the main idea of a combat.

(e) Publication

There seems at first sight to be no reason why Swift should not have published the Battle when it was written. He wrote the book to support Temple, and it would have seemed natural to publish it as a