in their affections; when Jupiter commanded the book of fate to be laid before him. Immediately were brought by Mercury three large volumes in folio, containing memoirs of all things paft, prefent, and to come. The clafps were of filver double gilt; the covers of celeftial turkey-leather, and the paper fuch as here on earth might almost pass for vellum. Jupiter, having filently read the decree, would communicate the import to none, but presently the book.

fhut up

Without the doors of this affembly there attended a vaft number of light, nimble gods, menial fervants to Jupiter: these are his miniftering inftruments in all affairs below. They travel in a caravan, more or less together, and are faftened to each other, like a link of galley-flaves, by a light chain, which paffes from them to Jupiter's great toe and yet, in receiving or delivering a meffage they may never approach above the loweft ftep of his throne, where he and they whisper to each other through a long, hollow trunk. These deities are called by mortal men accidents or events; but the gods call VOL. I. them

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them fecond causes. Jupiter having de livered his meffage to a certain number of thefe divinities, they flew immediately down to the pinnacle of the regal library, and, confulting a few minutes, entered unseen, and disposed the parties according to their orders.

Mean while Momus fearing the worst, and calling to mind an ancient prophecy, which bore no very good face to his children the moderns, bent his flight to the region of a malignant deity, called Criticifm. She dwelt on the top of a fnowy mountain in Nova Zembla; there Momus found her extended in her den upon the fpoils of numberlefs volumes, half devoured. At her right-hand fat Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; at her left Pride, her mother, dreffing her up in the fcraps of paper herself had torn. There was Opinion, her fifter, light of foot, hood-winked, and head-ftrong, yet giddy, and perpetually turning. About her played her children, Noife and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Pofitiveness, Pedantry and Ill-manners. The goddefs herself had claws like a cat; her head,.

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and ears, and voice refembled thofe of an afs her teeth fallen out before; her eyes turned inward, as if she looked only upon herself; her diet was the overflowing of her own gall; her Spleen was fo large, as to ftand prominent, like a dug of the first rate, nor wanted excrefcencies in form of teats, at which a crew of ugly monsters were greedily fucking; and, what is wonderful to conceive, the bulk of spleen increased faster than the fucking could diminifh it. Goddess, faid Momus, can you fit idly here, while our devout worshippers the moderns are this minute entering into a cruel battle, and perhaps now lying under the fwords of their enemies; who then here after will ever facrifice, or build altars ta our divinities? hafte therefore to the British ifle, and if poffible, prevent their deftruc tion; while I make factions among the gods, and gain them over to our party.

Momus, having thus delivered himself, ftaid not for an answer, but left the god defs to her own refentment. Up the rofe in a rage, and, as it is the form upon fuch. occafions, began a foliloquy: It is I (faid fhe) who give wisdom to infants and idiots;

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by me children grow wiser than their parents; by me beaux become politicians, and school-boys judges of philofophy; by me fophifters debate, and conclude upon the depths of knowledge; and coffee-house wits, inftinct by me, can correct an author's ftyle and difplay his minueft errors, without underftanding a fyllable of his matter, or his language; by me ftriplings spend their judgment, as they do their eftate, before it comes into their hands. It is I, who have depofed wit and knowledge from their empire over poetry, and advanced myself in their ftead. And shall a few upftart ancients dare oppofe me?-but come, my aged parent, and you my children dear, and thou, my beauteous fifter; let us afcend my chariot, and hafte to affift our devout moderns, who are now facrificing to us a hecatomb, as I perceive by that grateful fmell, which from thence reaches my noftrils.

The goddess, and her train, having mounted the chariot, which was drawn by tame geefe, flew over infinite regions, fhedding her influence in due places, till at length fhe arrived at her beloved ifland of Britain, but in hovering over

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its metropolis, what bleffings did fhe not let fall upon her feminaries of Gresham and Covent-Garden? and now fhe reached the fatal plain of St. James's library, at what time the two armies were upon the point to engage; where, entering with all her caravan unfeen, and landing upon a cafe of fhelves, now defert, but once inhabited by a colony of virtuofos, fhe ftaid a while to observe the pofture of both armies.

But, here the tender cares of a mother began to fill her thoughts, and move in her breaft: for, at the head of a troop of modern bowmen fhe caft her eyes upon her fon Wotton; to whom the fates had affigned a very fhort thread. Wotton, a young hero, whom an unknown father of mortal race begot by ftollen embraces with this goddess. He was the darling of his mother above all her children, and the refolved to go and comfort him. But first, according to the good old custom of deities, fhe caft about to change her shape, for fear the divinity of her countenance might dazzle his mortal fight, and over