Chapter I: Front Matter

GLEANINGS
FOR THE CURIOUS
FROM THE
_Harvest-Fields of Literature_.

A MELANGE OF EXCERPTA,

COLLATED BY

C. C. BOMBAUGH, A.M., M.D.

“So she gleaned in the field until even, and beat out that she had gleaned: and it was about an ephah of barley.” §Ruth 2:17.§

“I have here made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the string that ties them.”—§Montaigne.§

PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
1890.

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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
A. D. WORTHINGTON & CO.
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

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Prefatory.

I am not ignorant, ne unsure, that many there are, before whose sight this Book shall finde small grace, and lesse favour. So hard a thing it is to write or indite and matter, whatsoever it be, that should be able to sustaine and abide the variable judgement, and to obtaine or winne the constant love and allowance of every man, especially if it containe in it any novelty or unwonted strangenesse.—§Raynald’s Woman’s Book.§

Bid him welcome. This is the motley-minded gentleman.

§As You Like It.§

—A fountain set round with a rim of old, mossy stones, and paved in its bed with a sort of mosaic work of variously-colored pebbles.

§House of Seven Gables.§

—A gatherer and a disposer of other men’s stuff.

§Wotton.§

A running banquet that hath much variety, but little of a sort.

§Butler.§

They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

§Love’s Labor Lost.§

There’s no want of meat, sir; portly and curious viands are prepared to please all kinds of appetites.

§Massinger.§

A dinner of fragments is said often to be the best dinner. So are there few minds but might furnish some instruction and entertainment out of their scraps, their odds and ends of thought. They who cannot weave a uniform web may at least produce a piece of patchwork; which may be useful and not without a charm of its own.

§Guesses at Truth.§

—It is a regular omnibus; there is something in it to everybody’s taste. Those who like fat can have it; so can they who like lean; as well as those who prefer sugar, and those who choose pepper.

§Mysteries of Paris.§

Read, and fear not thine own understanding: this book will create a clear one in thee; and when thou hast considered thy purchase, thou wilt call the price of it a charity to thyself.

§Shirley.§

In winter you may reade them ad ignem, by the fireside, and in summer ad umbram, under some shadie tree; and therewith passe away the tedious howres.

§Saltonstall.§