Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/262

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188
APPENDIX

Mr Boyle? If the Doctor, as he owns, has but one particular from his memory, the rest he must have from his invention. I am obliged, indeed, to the Doctor; for he has effectually disproved himself in his own deposition. For he first declares he knows but one particular; and yet presently runs into a charge, whereof nothing can be made out from that particular. And would such an evidence as this is, pass in Doctors' Commons? I am much mistaken, if the worthy persons that preside there would dismiss such a witness as this without marks of their dissatisfaction.

To account, then, for that one particular that the Doctor is certain of, the reader must give me leave to tell him a short story. After I was nominated to the Library-keeper's office, (before the Patent was finished), I was informed that one copy of every book printed in England, which were due to the Royal Library by Act of Parliament, had not of late been brought into the Library, according to the said Act. Upon this I made application to the Master of the Stationers' Company, to whom the Act directed me, and demanded the copies; the effect whereof was, that I procured near a thousand volumes, of one sort or