OF ELEGANT EXTRACTS, NOTABLE OBSERVATIONS, CURIOUS APOTHEGMS, QUIPS AND SALLIES, SAWS, TAGS, EPIGRAMS, NOTIONS, LITERARY GEMS AND OBITER DICTA.
"Un suffisant lecteur découvre souvent ès écrits d'autrui des perfections autres que celles que l'auteur y a mises et aperçues, et y prête des sens et des visages plus riches."
- Montaigne: Essais (ed. Villet) 1. 24.
The practice of keeping a common-place Booke or collection of memorable extracts, once widely cultivated among the Literati or lettered Classes, has fallen of late somewhat into desuetude.
Professor Molebag, however, having spent many laborious yeeres bookishly cloistered among the famous Nations of the Dead who inhabit the ghostly portion of the Republic of Letters, as well as the worthiest and best-reputed living exponents of the writer's Calling, offers this record, culled from his laborious researches, which now he ventures to lay before the Publick, humbly soliciting their indulgence of his trifling Production."
One proceeds by clicking on "Contents"
