Book excerpt: Excerpt from Second Series of Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 of 3: Consisting of Researches in Literary, Biographical, and Political History; Of Critical and Philosophical Inquiries; And of Secret History Authentic knowledge for evanescent topics; they attempt to demonstrate some general principle, by induction from a variety of particulars - to develop those imperfect truths which float obscurely in the mind and to suggest subjects, which, by their singularity, are new to inquiry, and which may lead to new trains of ideas. Such. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.