Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/96

 Both parties took the hint, and heightened their animosities so on a sudden that they resolved it should come to a battle. Immediately the two main bodies withdrew under their several ensigns to the farther parts of the Library, and there entered into cabals and consults upon the present emergency. The Moderns were in very warm debates upon the choice of their leaders, and nothing less than the fear impending from their enemies, could have kept them from mutinies upon this occasion. The difference was greatest among the horse, where every private trooper pretended to the chief command, from Tasso and Milton to Dryden and Withers. The light-horse were commanded by Cowley and Despréaux. There, came the bowmen under their valiant leaders, Descartes, Gassendi, and Hobbes, whose strength was such that they could shoot their arrows beyond the atmosphere, never to fall down again, but turn, like that of Evander, into meteors, or like the cannon-ball, into stars. Paracelsus brought a squadron of stink-pot-flingers from the snowy mountains of Rhætia. There, came a vast body of dragoons, of different nations, under the leading of Harvey, their great Aga, part armed with