Hot pressed doctors outwitted; or, Who's afraid. By Hugo de la Loy

Front Cover
Robertson, 1808

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 127 - We crossed a walk to the other part of the Academy, where, as I have already said, the projectors in speculative learning resided. The first professor I saw was in a very large room, with forty pupils about him. After salutation, observing me to look earnestly upon a frame, which took up the greatest part of both the length and breadth of the room, he said perhaps I might wonder to see him employed in a project for improving speculative knowledge by practical and mechanical operations.
Page 128 - He then commanded six and thirty of the lads to read the several lines softly as they appeared upon the frame ; and where they found three or four words together that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remaining boys who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn the engine was so contrived, that the words shifted into new places, as the square bits of wood moved upside down.
Page 128 - Six hours a day the young students were employed in this labour ; and the professor showed me several volumes in large folio, already collected, of broken sentences, which he intended to piece together, and out of those rich materials to give the world a complete body of all arts and sciences...
Page 128 - The professor then desired me to observe, for he was going to set his engine at work. The pupils at his command took each of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of the frame; and giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of the words was entirely changed.
Page 199 - But to punish (as the law does at present) any dangerous or offensive writings, which, when published, shall on a fair and impartial trial be adjudged of a pernicious tendency, is necessary for the preservation of peace and good order, of government and religion, the only solid foundations of civil liberty.
Page 138 - Tis the temptation of the devil That makes all human actions evil : For Saints may do the same things by The Spirit, in sincerity, Which other men are tempted to, And at the devil's instance do ; And yet the actions be contrary, Just as the Saints and Wicked vary.
Page 127 - Every one knew how laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences ; whereas by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, may write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, law, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.
Page 128 - These bits of wood were covered on every square with papers pasted on them, and on these papers were written all the words of their language in their several moods, tenses, and declensions, but without any order. The professor then desired me to observe, for he was going to set his engine at work.
Page 129 - He assured me, that this invention had employed all his thoughts from his youth, that he had emptied the whole vocabulary into his frame, and made the strictest computation of the general proportion there is in books between the numbers of particles, nouns, and verbs, and other parts of speech.

Bibliographic information