For the Curious PROM 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 : "I have here made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, AND SEARLE, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 1875. All rights reserved. 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 any matter, whatsoever it be, that should be able to sustaine and abide the variable judgement, and to obtaine or winne the constant lobe and allowance of every man, especially if it containe in it ang novelty or unwonted strangenesse.-RAYNALD'S WOMAN'S BOOK. 840 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. INTRODUCTION. AN earlier edition of GLEANINGS having attracted the hearty appro. val of a limited circle of that class of readers who prefer "a running banquet that hath much variety, but little of a sort," the present publisher requested the preparation of an enlargement of the work. In the augmented form in which it is now offered to the public, the contents will be found so much more comprehensive and omnifarious that, while it has been nearly doubled in size, it has been more than doubled in literary value. Miscellanea of the omnium-gatherum sort appear to be as acceptable to-day as they undoubtedly were in the youthful period of our literature, though for an opposite reason. When books were scarce, and costly, and inaccessible, anxious readers found in "scripscrapologia" multifarious sources of instruction; now that books are like the stars for multitude, the reader who is appalled by their endless succession and variety is fain to receive with thankfulness the cream that is skimmed and the grain that is sifted by patient hands for his use. Our ancestors were regaled with such olla-podrida as "The Galimaufry: a Kickshaw [Fr. quelque chose] Treat which comprehends odd bits and scraps, and odds and ends;" or "The Wit's Miscellany: odd and uncommon epigrams, facetious drolleries, whimsical mottoes, merry tales, and fables, for the entertainment and diversion of good company." To the present generation is accorded a wider field for excursion, from the Curiosities of Disraeli, and the Commonplaces of Southey, to the less ambitious collections of less learned collaborators. "Into a hotch-potch," says Sir Edward Coke, “is commonly put not one thing alone, but one thing with other things together." The present volume is an expedient for grouping together a variety which will be found in no other compilation. From the nonsense of literary trifling to the highest expression of intellectual force; from the anachronisms of art to the grandest revelations of science; from selections for the child to extracts for the philosopher, it will accommodate the widest diversity of taste, and furnish entertainment for all ages, sexes, and conditions. As a pastime for the leisure half-hour, at |