human
This little book has just been given to me by Durham; it is very scarce, so much so that the British Museum, he says, does not possess a copy; probably there are not six in the world. I never saw it, nor heard of it till now; just twenty-nine years after the publication of my Proverbial Philosophy. It is a curious coincidence that the headings of this Wits' Miscellany are similar to my own; as Of so and so throughout; I first wrote On so and so; but did not like the sound, and remembering it would be De in Latin, altered it to Of. The treatment also of the subjects has some apparent similitude; but in looking all through the book, it is strange that not one line, not one phrase, is the same as any of mine. Travelling on the same road, and in somewhat of the same proverbial rhythm, this is very curious; whilst it certainly acquits me of even unintended and unconscious plagiarism. The headings begin of God, of Heaven, of Angels, &c.,--and then of vertue, of peace, of truth, &c., and afterwards of love, of jealousie, of hate, of beauty, of flattery, &c., &c.,--all being aphoristic quotations from ancient authors. As before stated, the whole was unseen by me until nearly thirty years after I had published my independent essays on the same theses much in a similar key.
gpt
Politeuphuia