Proposals at large, with an Account of this Undertaking, may be had of all booksellers both in town and country; and of Jacob Robinson, publisher, on Ludgate-Hill, where subscriptions are taken in.d

It has been, for a long time, a very just complaint, among the learned, that a multitude of valuable productions, published in small pamphlets, or in single sheets, are in a short time, too often by accidents, or negligence, destroyed and intirely lost; and that those authors, whose reverence for the public has hindered them from swelling their works with repetitions, or encumbering them with superfluities, and who, therefore, deserve the praise and gratitude of posterity, are forgotten, for the very reason for which they might expect to be remembered. It has been long lamented, that the duration of the monuments of genius and study, as well as of wealth and power, depends in no small measure on their bulk; and that volumes, considerable only for their size, are handed down from one age to another, when compendious treatises, of far greater importance, are suffered to perish, as the compactest bodies sink into the water, while those, of which the extension bears a greater proportion to the weight, float upon the surface.

This observation hath been so often confirmed by experience, that, in the neighbouring nation, the common appellation of small performances is derived from this unfortunate circumstance; a flying sheet, or a fugitive piece, are the terms by which they are distinguished,2 and distinguished with too great propriety, as they are subject, after having amused mankind for a while, to take their flight, and disappear for ever.

What are the losses which the learned have already sustained, by having neglected to fix those fugitives in some certain residence, it is not easy to say; but there is no doubt that many valuable observations have been repeated, because they were not preserved; and that, therefore, the progress of knowledge has been retarded, by the necessity of doing what had been already done, but was done for those who forgot their benefactor.

The obvious method of preventing these losses, of preserving to every man the reputation he has merited by long assiduity, is to unite these scattered pieces into volumes, that those, which are too small to preserve themselves, may be secured by their combination with others; to consolidate these atoms of learning into systems,3 to collect these disunited rays, that their light and their fire may become perceptible.

Of encouraging this useful design, the studious and inquisitive have now an opportunity, which, perhaps, was never offered them before, and which, if it should now be lost, there is not any probability that they will ever recover. They may now conceive themselves in possession of the lake into which all those rivulets of science have for many years been flowing; but which, unless its waters are turned into proper channels, will soon burst its banks, or be dispersed in imperceptible exhalations.

In the Harleian library, which I have purchased, are treasured a greater number of pamphlets and small treatises, than were, perhaps, ever yet seen in one place; productions of the writers of all parties, and of every age, from the Reformation; collected with an unbounded and unwearied curiosity, without exclusion of any subject.

So great is the variety, that it has been no small labour to peruse the titles, in order to reduce them to a rude division, and range their heaps under general heads; of which the numbers, though not yet encreased by the subdivision which an accurate survey will necessarily produce, cannot but excitee the curiosity of all the studious, as there is scarcely any part of knowledge, which some of these articles do not comprehend.4

The heads under which they lie ranged at present, but ranged without any nice distinction, or regular method, are those of,5

As many of these tracts must be obscure by length of time, or defective for want of those discoveries which have been made since they were written, there will be sometimes added historical, explanatory, or supplemental notes, in which the occasion of the treatise will be shewn, or an account given of the author, allusions to forgotten facts will be illustrated, or the subject farther elucidated from other writers.