Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/87

 those that spoke to be in the ragged plight mentioned a while ago, their jades lean and foundered, their weapons of rotten wood, their armour rusty, and nothing but rags underneath, he laughed loud, and in his pleasant way swore. By G, he believed them!

Now the Moderns had not proceeded, in their late negotiation, with secrecy enough to escape the notice of the enemy, for those advocates who had begun the quarrel by setting first on foot the dispute of precedency, talked so loud of coming to a battle, that Temple happened to overhear them, and gave immediate intelligence to the Ancients, who thereupon drew up their scattered troops together, resolving to act upon the defensive; upon which several of the Moderns fled over to their party, and among the rest Temple himself. This Temple, having been educated and long conversed among the Ancients, was of all the Moderns their greatest favourite, and became their greatest champion.

Things were at this crisis when a material accident fell out: for upon the highest corner of a large window there dwelt a certain spider, swollen up to the first magnitude by the destruction of infinite numbers of flies, whose spoils lay scattered before the gates of