AN ABRIDGMENT, &c. THIS HIS is an excellent tract on the neceffity of taking notes i■ writing, in order to profit by what we read; and the manner of doing it is prescribed. The memory is unfaithful, and the best memory cannot retain all. Auguftin complained of the many things he had fuffered himfelf to lofe, and was obliged to feek after them again. Much time is loft in this way. Inftances are given of learned men endued with great memory, who yet all affifted themselves by making collections—ergo notandum et excerpendum. Pliny Secundus, the fecretary of nature, attained to prodigious erudition by this method, which he obferved conftantly; insomuch that his ne,hew tells us, he never read any thing without making extracts. While he was lying in the funfhine; at fupper; after fupper; while he was bathing; while he was dreffing, liber legebatur, adnotabatur. Even while he was on a journey, an amanuenfis was with him; who wrote in gloves if the weather was cold while his nephew was walking out for the air, he used that memorable expreffion, poteras has horas non perdere-0 temporis parfimoniam, quàm ignota es et rara!-Omnium rerum jactura reparabilis, præter quam temporis. Extracts are neceffary, even to a poet, who works from his imagination. We fee an example of this in Herman Hugo, whofe Pia Defideria are an ingenious contexture of the Scriptures and the Fathers together; out of which, when he had collected, he made this excellent ufe. Extracts are the life and foul of history and no history can be composed without previous nota tion, Even orators must read, and note, and transfer the excellencies of others into their own page. Which of them all did ever arrive at the fummit, of learning, without conftant applica tion to notes and extracts? Ariftotle exceeded all that went before him; but not without the making of infinite collections from the books they had left behind them. Among great divines, examples are given of Auguftin, Jerom, Cyprian, and Bernard; and after every one, Drexelius preffes the inference, that nothing great ever was, or ever will be done, without iudustrious notation. At last he adds an example from his own experience, and protests, that he would not part with his notes for any price but that of heaven itself. In difplaying the profit of it, he observes, 1. That whatever fubject was propofed, he could tell all the authors that had written upon it; even though the subject were minute and out of the way. A friend wanted to borrow his book: but most authors are of ufe only to thofe that have read them. He reckons a man nothing, if he could not talk an hour upon a fubject. 2. In preaching: If the Scriptures were duly read and extracted, a man's ftore would never be exhaufted. 3. For inftructing any person who comes to confult or ask. Particulars of time and place can rarely be recollected without notes. 4. A man may fubfift upon his own stock, in cafe of fickness, or under any hindrance, or in time of age, when he muft write, but cannot read. It is miferable to be running to the baker, when we fhould be going to dinner: think of the ant and the bee. The author declares of himself, with advantage and fatisfaction he ufed the fruits of thirty years labour, and that, if his life were to laft ever fo long, his fund would never be out. He was a great example of his own doctrine. 5. In all kinds of speaking and writing, he found himself in readiness: and could engage to write two books in a year on different fubjects out of his excerpta. There is little difficulty in building, when all the necessary materials are ready at hand. 6. It is of excellent ufe in conversation ; keeps it from flagging, and places us above the neceffity of vain repetitions, such as women and ignorant perfons fall into for want of matter. After the doctrine has been confirmed by teftimonies and examples, the author confiders the reafons. 1. It is observed, that the attention is fixed better by writing and noting, than by repeated readings. Dionyfius of Halicarnaffus reports, that Demofthenes tranfcribed Thucydides eight times. Jerom wrote over many volumes. 2. The matter is deeper impreffed upon the mind. In reading, the eye wanders, and the judgment is Lefs exact. Money is not examined merely by looking at it; we rub it, and weigh it, and found it, to diftinguish between the precious and the vile, and by a fimilar method we must diftinguith truth from error, and one style from another. 3. What is write ten is not forgotten-litera fcripta manet-as it was faid in a former chapter. 4. How many volumes for the benefit of the public have been fent abroad from the mere induftry of collecting! Antiqua lectiones, Florigelia, Hore fubfeciva, Mufarum horti, &c. &c. And if we find the collections of others fo ferviceable, how much more fo will our own be? When we ourselves are the collectors, our own uses and purposes are provided for; and we may derive more ufe from one page of this fort, than from a hundred by another perfon, who works according to his own views, not according to yours; as every fcholar will discover, who has any exercise in this way: he takes only what suits him; turning and twilling every ftream into his own channel. (This teaches how we are exposed when another perfon picks out an history for us.) 5. The ant collects in fummer for her food in winter. This is beautifully defcribed and applied-itionibus ac reditionibus candem viam relegit millies, fatigari nescia-brumæ injurias non metuit, infæcundum hiemem non ægre tolerat, &c. The happy industry of the bee is defcribed with the fame poetical eleganceOmnes apicula flores delibant, et velut judicio excerpunt-violarum fuaves divitias-nec extrahunt nifi quod melioris fucci eft; venenum quod in flare deterius, araneis relinquunt. Hæc apum fedulitas, et in excerpendo fludium, mellis et ceræ thefauris orbem opulentat. Let us be as wife as they in our ftudies: let us take the best authors, and out of them the best things: otherwife, like fummer flies, we have neither honey nor wax; our converfation and writings are poor and empty. 6. Notes form an epitome, and contain the effence of a library, and will fupply the place of it: they will travel with us, where books are difficult to be met with. Take what you want out of the book you are reading, and it is done for ever you need never turn it over any more. Incredible how ufeful a volume may be compiled in how fhort a time! Your own papers will always be found your best library. " Objections answered.-1. I have no delign to write volumes like Origen. A. But the finalleft thing cannot be well done without it hence we have fo many jejune compofitions—and when any public exercife comes in courfe, not having dug, we are forced to beg and borrow. 2. Another objection: that perfons who write, neglect the use of memory, and fo lofe it. A. This is not to fet afide, but to affift, the memory; and keeps it in exercise; for, after all, you must remember when, where, what you have noted. Afliftance your memory must have, unless it is univerfal, and you can carry off by heart the books of a library. 3. Many, and they not unlearned, do not practife this method. A. Make not those your example who turn out of the straight road, but follow those who are in it. They who do as well as they can without thefe helps, would do much better with them. 4. The old philofophers delivered to their fcholars by ear and memory. A. But they wrote afterwards at home. The prac tice of all univerfities is an anfwer to this, where they write down notes of the lectures given to them. -5. You may lofe your notes, and then what becomes of your learning? A. What if the fky fhould fall? Do men avoid laying up money, for fear the thieves fhould have it? or to build houses, for fear they should be burned? And fuppofe I should lofe my papers, I may at the worst have more left upon my mind, than you who never wrote at all.————6. It will be troublefome to carry them about. A. If they are collected with judgment, according to the method I teach, they will never rife to a great bulk befides, you, who are fo afraid of being over-burthened, confider how many articles were carried from place to place by every Roman foldier-cibum, utenfilia, vallum, arma-and is not learning a fort of warfare? 7. It is a work of too much time. A. Your time cannot be better employed and to fome perfons, all the time they spend in reading without it, is thrown away. Marking the book, as fome people do, is a flovenly trick, and of little ufe.-8. There are indexes. A. Into which you will often look without obtaining any fatisfaction-They promife great things, and often do littleAuthors feldom make them for themselves-Many books have none-No index fo good as our own, taken with the reading of the context-It is too late to confult indexes when you are to write or speak: and befides, it is part of the use of your own notes to direct you what books to confult, and what indexes to go to. Idleness is at the bottom of all thefe excufes: you read for ease and pleasure, not for profit; your reading is of no value-It is not worth while to build a granary to lay up chaff. There is no more benefit in reading a great deal, than in eating a great deal: the good is from what is properly digefted. The work may have its trouble; but nothing valuable is obtained without it. Many of moderate parts become great by the practice of noting. That |