Much also did the Quintus _collect_; he had a fine _Almanack
Collection_, a _Catechism_ and _Pamphlet Collection_; also, a
_Collection of Advertisements_, which he began, is not so incomplete as
you most frequently see such things. He puts high value on his
_Alphabetical Lexicon of German Subscribers for Books_, where my name
also occurs among the Js.
But what he liked best to produce were Schemes of Books. Accordingly,
he sewed together a large work, wherein he merely advised the Learned
of things they ought to introduce in Literary History, which History he
rated some ells higher than Universal or Imperial History. In his
Prolegomena to this performance, he transiently submitted to the
Literary republic that Hommel had given a register of Jurists who were
sons of wh--, of others who had become Saints; that Baillet enumerates
the Learned who _meant_ to write something; and Ancillon those who
wrote nothing at all; and the Lübeck Superintendent Götze, those who
were shoemakers, those who were drowned; and Bernhard those whose
fortunes and history before birth were interesting. This (he could now
continue) should, as it seems, have excited us to similar muster-rolls
and matriculations of other kinds of Learned; whereof he proposed a
few; for example, of the Learned who were unlearned; of those who were
entire rascals; of such as wore their own hair,--of cue-preachers,
cue-psalmists, cue-annalists, and so forth; of the Learned who
had worn black leather breeches, of others who had worn rapiers;
of the Learned who had died in their eleventh year,--in their
twentieth,--twenty-first, &c.,--in their hundred and fiftieth, of which
he knew no instance, unless the Beggar Thomas Parr might be adduced; of
the Learned who wrote a more abominable hand than the other Learned
(whereof we know only Rolfinken and his letters, which were as long as
his hands[43]); or of the Learned who had clipt nothing from each other
but the beard (whereof no instance is known, save that of Philelphus
and Timotheus[44]).
Such by-studies did he carry on along with his official labors; but I
think the State in viewing these matters is actually mad: it compares
the man who is great in Philosophy and Belles-Lettres at the expense of
his jog-trot officialities, to _concert-clocks_, which, though striking
their hours in flute-melodies, are worse time-keepers than your gross,
stupid steeple-clocks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account