Excerpt from Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts and Scarce Books in the Library of St. John's College, Cambridge However, if there had been a Catalogue in existence, it would not have been a useless task to have reconsidered and carefully reconstructed it from personal inspection Those who have consulted the works above-named, will readily agree with me, that nothing can be more meagre than the ac counts they give; and it is often quite impossible to make any use of the information, such as it is, from the careless manner in which the materials have been heaped together. That I may not be supposed to erect myself into a censor without sufficient ground, I will give an extract from a foreign review of some note, which expresses more censure on the ponderous volumes of the Catal. Mss. Aug. And Hib., than I should venture to do. The passage occurs in a review of one of Hearne's publications, and it goes on to speak of the then expected second edition of the Bodleian Catalogue of printed Books. 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.