P. 63. Temple.—Sir William Temple's historic dispute with Wotton and Bentley, in which he had the assistance of Charles Boyle, afterwards Earl of Orrery, provoked Swift's Battle of the Books. Compare Boileau's La Lutrin.
P. 63. Swift.—'"The Battle of the Books" is the fancy of a lover of libraries.'—Leigh Hunt.
The royal library at St. James's alluded to was one of the nine privileged libraries which received copies of new books under the Copyright Act of Anne. The privilege passed to the British Museum in 1757, when George II made over the royal collection to the nation.
P. 65. Bacon.—Sir William Temple in his Essay on the Ancient and Modern Learning (pp. [59], [63], [110]) concludes 'with a Saying of Alphonsus Sirnamed the Wise, King of Aragon: That among so many things as are by Men possessed or pursued in the Course of their Lives, all the rest are Bawbles, Besides Old Wood to Burn, Old Wine to Drink, Old Friends to Converse with, and Old Books to Read'.
P. 67. Goldsmith.—Horace Walpole wrote to the Rev. William Cole (Letter 2337; Oxford edition): 'There is a chapter in Voltaire that would cure anybody of being a great man even in his own eyes. It is the chapter in which a Chinese goes into a bookseller's shop, and marvels at not finding any of his own country's classics.'
P. 69. Hazlitt.—'William Hazlitt, I believe, has no books, except mine; but he has Shakespeare and Rousseau by heart.'—Leigh Hunt.
P. 71. Hazlitt.—Hazlitt wrote this essay in Florence, on his honeymoon, and it opens with a quotation from Sterne: 'And what of this new book, that the whole world make such a rout about?' Lord Byron had died in the previous year, 1824.
'Laws are not like women, the worse for being old.'—The Duke of Buckingham's speech in the House of Lords in Charles the Second's time (Hazlitt's note).
P. 72. Dudley.—Rogers is reported to have said, 'When a new book comes out I read an old one.'