No matter—as an appendage to seamstressy, the thread-paper might be of some consequence to my mother—of none to my father, as a mark in Slawkenbergius . Slawkenbergius in every page of him was a rich treasure of inexhaustible knowledge to my father—he could not open him amiss; and he would often say in closing the book, that if all the arts and sciences in the world, with the books which treated of them, were lost—should the wisdom and policies of governments, he would say, through disuse, ever happen to be forgot, and all that statesmen had wrote or caused to be written, upon the strong or the weak sides of courts and kingdoms, should they be forgot also—and Slawkenbergius only left⸺there would be enough in him in all conscience, he would say, to set the world a-going again. A treasure therefore was he indeed! an institute of all that was necessary to be known of noses, and everything else—at matin, noon, and vespers was Hafen Slawkenbergius his recreation and delight: ’twas forever in his hands⸺you would have sworn, Sir, it had been a canon’s prayerbook—so worn, so glazed, so contrited and attrited was it with fingers and with thumbs in all its parts, from one end even unto the other.
I am not such a bigot to Slawkenbergius as my father;⸺there is a fund in him, no doubt: but in my opinion, the best, I don’t say the most profitable, but the most amusing part of Hafen Slawkenbergius , is his tales⸻and, considering he was a German , many of them told not without fancy:⸻these take up his second book, containing nearly one half of his folio, and are comprehended in ten decads, each decad containing ten tales⸻Philosophy is not built upon tales; and therefore ’twas certainly wrong in Slawkenbergius to send them into the world by that name!⸺there are a few of them in his eighth, ninth, and tenth decads, which I own seem rather playful and sportive, than