The apology of the Church of England, and an epistle to one Seignior Scipio…

THO his Memory were so great and so improved,¹ yet he would not entirely rely upon it,² but entered down into Common place Books, whatever he thought he might afterwards have occasion to use; which, as the Author of his Life informs us, were many in number, and great in quantity, being a vast Treasure of Learning, and a rich Repository of Knowledge, into which he had collected Sacred, Profane, Poetic, Philosophic and Divine Notes of all sorts; and all these he had again reduced into a small piece ⟨p. 39⟩or two, which were a kind of General Indexes, which he made use of at all times when he was to speak or write any thing; which were drawn up in Characters for brevity, and thereby so obscured, that they were not of any use, after his Death, to any other person. And besides these, he ever kept Diaries,³ in which he entered whatever he heard or saw that was remarkable; which once a year he perused, and out of them extracted what ever was more remarkable.

THO his Memory were so great and so improved,¹ yet he would not intirely rely upon it,² but entered down into Common place Books, whatever he thought he might afterwards have occasion to use; which, as the Author of his Life informs us, were many in number, and great in quantity, being a vast Treasure of Learning, and a rich Repository of Knowledge, into which he had collected Sacred, Profanne, Poetick, Philosophick and Divine Notes of all sorts; and all these he had again reduced into a small piece ⟨p. 39⟩or two, which were a kind of General Indexes, which he made use of at all times when he was to speak or write any thing; which were drawn up in Characters for brevity, and thereby so obscured, that they were not of any use, after his Death, to any other person. And besides these, he ever kept Diaries,