Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/71

 THE

BOOKSELLER

TO THE

READER

following discourse, as it is unquestionably of the same author, so it seems to have been written about the same time with the former: I mean the year 1697, when the famous dispute was on foot about Ancient and Modern Learning. The controversy took its rise from an essay of Sir William Temple's upon that subject, which was answered by W. Wotton, B.D., with an Appendix by Dr Bentley, endeavouring to destroy the credit of Æsop and for authors, whom Sir William Temple had, in the essay before-mentioned, highly commended. In that Appendix the Doctor falls hard upon a new edition of Phalaris put out by the Honourable Charles Boyle (now Earl of Orrery) to which Mr Boyle replied at large with great learning and wit and the Doctor voluminously lxiii