Excerpt from The Edinburgh Magazine, and Literary Miscellany, Vol. 8: A New Series of the Scots Magazine; January-June, 1821 Courteous reader, -you may have happened to know, or if not, be mm informed, that the greater part Of the knowledge in the world for these last three hundred years, has been chiefly owing to the agency of the Press, and the industry of Printers; that if it had not been for this great invention, the ma. Nuscripts of the learned might have for ever slumbered in their closets, uselesstoallbut themselves, and the moths which fed upon them and you would have been deprived Of the delectable information and unusement which even books of the lowest class afl'ord in such unlit mited variety. As authors were, moreover, but few in tho'se manu script days, compared to what they are now, it is but a fair inference, that of the immense number who luvs since appeared, the greater have owed their existence and their fame to the exertions of Ei'ntcrs. This being the case, we hope that authors in future will al. And primes never fail to claim, their prescriptive right of writ ing at least one e in every work that comes forth through their means to the wor d. 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.