Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/82

 prudent by our ancestors to bind them to the peace with strong iron chains. Of which invention the original occasion was this: when the works of Scotus first came out, they were carried to a certain great library, and had lodgings appointed them; but this author was no sooner settled than he went to visit his master Aristotle, and there both concerted together to seize Plato by main force and turn him out from his ancient station among the divines, where he had peaceably dwelt near eight hundred years. The attempt succeeded, and the two usurpers have reigned ever since in his stead, but to maintain quiet for the future, it was decreed that all polemics of the larger size should be held fast with a chain.

By this expedient the public peace of libraries might certainly have been preserved, if a new species of controversial books had not arose of late years, instinct with a most malignant spirit, from the war above-mentioned between the learned about the higher summity of Parnassus.

When these books were first admitted into the public libraries, I remember to have said, upon occasion, to several persons concerned, how I was sure they would