his mode of life; a few eggs, a little bread, and some water, were his ordinary food. A drawer of his desk being open, Mr. Heyman saw there several eggs, and some money, which Magliabechi had placed there for his daily use. But as this drawer was generally open, it frequently happened that the servants of his friends, or strangers who came to see him, pilfered some of these things; the money or the eggs.

His dress was as cynical as his repasts. A black doublet which descended to his knees; large and long breeches; an old patched black cloak; an amorphous hat, very much worn, and the edges ragged; a large neckcloth of coarse cloth, begrimed with snuff'; a dirty shirt which he always wore as long as it lasted, and which the broken elbows of his doublet did not conceal; and, to finish this inventory, a pair of ruffles which did not belong to the shirt. Such was the brilliant dress of our learned Florentine; and in such did he appear in the public streets, as well as in his own house. Let me not forget another circumstance; to warm his hands, he generally had a stove with fire fastened to his arms, so that his clothes were generally singed and burnt, and his hands scorched. He had nothing otherwise remarkable about him. To literary men he was extremely affable, and a cynic only to the eye; anecdotes almost incredible are related of his

memory. It is somewhat uncommon that as he was so fond of literary food, he did not occasionally dress some dishes of his own invention, or at least to his own relish. He indeed should have written CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. He was a living Cyclopedia, though a dark lantern.

Of such reading-men, Hobbes entertained a very contemptible, if not a rash opinion. His own reading was inconsiderable, and he used to say that if he had spent as much time in reading as other men of learning, he should have been as ignorant as they. He put little value on a large library, for he considered all books to be merely extracts and copies, for that most authors were like sheep, never deviating from the beaten path. History he treated lightly, and thought there were more lies than truths in it. But let us carry with us after all this, that Hobbes was a mere metaphysician, idolising his own vain and empty hypothesis. It is true enough that weak heads carrying in them too much reading may be staggered. Le Clerc observes of two learned men, De Marcilly and Bartius, that they would have composed more useful works had they read less numerous authors and digested the better writers.

ABRIDGERS.

THE present article presents the history of ABRIDGERS; a kind of literary men to whom the

indolence of modern readers, and indeed the multiplicity of authors, gives ample employment.

It would be difficult (observe the learned Benedictines, the authors of the Literary History of France) to relate all the unhappy consequences which ignorance introduced, and the causes which produced that ignorance. But we must not forget to place in this number the mode of reducing, by way of abridgment, what the ancients had written in bulky volumes. Examples of this practice may be observed in preceding centuries, but it was in the fifth that it began to be in general use. As the number of students and readers diminished, authors neglected literature, and were disgusted with composition; for to write is seldom done, but when the writer entertains the hope of finding readers. Instead of original authors, there suddenly arose numbers of Abridgers. These men, amidst the prevailing disgust for literature, imagined they should gratify the public by introducing a mode of reading works in a few hours, which otherwise could not be done in many months; and, observing that the bulky volumes of the ancients lay buried in dust, without any one condescending to examine them, necessity inspired them with an invention that might bring those works and themselves into public notice, by the care they took

of renovating them. This they imagined to effect by forming abridgments of these ponderous volumes.

All these Abridgers, however, did not follow the same mode. Some contented themselves with making a mere abridgment of their authors, by employing their own expressions, or by inconsiderable alterations. Others composed those abridgments in drawing them from various authors, but from whose works they only took what appeared to them most worthy of observation, and embellished them in their own style. Others again, having before them several authors who wrote on the same subject, took passages from each, united them, and thus formed a new work. These last executed their design by digesting in common-places, and under various titles, the most valuable parts they could collect, from the best authors they read. To these last ingenious scholars we owe the rescue of many valuable fragments of antiquity. They fortunately preserved the best maxims, characters, descriptions, and any other subjects which they found interesting in the studies.

Some learned men have censured these abridgers as the cause of our having lost so many excellent entire works of the ancients; for posterity becoming less studious was satisfied with these extracts, and neglected to preserve the originals,

whose voluminous size was less attractive. Others, on the contrary, say that these Abridgers have not been so prejudicial to literature; and that had it not been for their care which snatched many a perishable fragment from that shipwreck of letters which the barbarians occasioned, we should perhaps have had no works of the ancients remaining. Many voluminous works have been greatly improved by their abridgers. The vast history of Trogus Pompeius was soon forgotten and finally perished, after the excellent epitome of it by Justin, who winnowed the abundant chaff from the grain.

Bayle gives very excellent advice to an Abridger, when he shews that Xiphilin, in his Abridgment of Dion, takes no notice of a circumstance very material for entering into the character of Domitian:-the recalling the empress Domitia after having turned her away for her intrigues with a player. By omitting this fact in the Abridgment (and which is discovered through Suetonius) Xiphilin has evinced, he says, a deficient judgment; for Domitian's ill qualities are much better exposed, when it is known that he was mean spirited enough to restore to the dignity of empress the prostitute of a player.

Abridgers, Compilers, and Translators, are now alike regarded with contempt; yet to form their works with skill requires an exertion of judg