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The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, a New Ed., With Notes (5)
The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison a New Ed With Notes - 5 Author:Joseph Addison Volume: 5 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1811 Original Publisher: Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to ... more »Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: No. 529. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6. Singula quceque locum tencant sortita decenter. Hob. Upon the hearing of several late disputes concerning rank and precedence, I could not forbear amusing myself with some observations, which I have made upon the learned world, as to this great particular. By the learned world I here mean at large, all those who are any way concerned in works of literature, whether in the writing, printing, or repeating part. To begin with the writers; I have observed that the author of a folio, in all companies and conversations, sets himself above the author of a quarto; the author of a quarto above the author of an octavo; and so on, by a gradual descent and subordination, to an author in twenty-fours. This distinction is so well observed, that in an assembly of the learned, I have seen a folio-writer place himself in an elbow-chair, when the author of a duodecimo has, out of a just deference to his superior quality, seated himself upon a squab. In a word, authors are usually ranged in company after the same manner as their works are upon a shelf. The most minute pocket-author, hath beneath him the writers of all pamphlets, or works that are only stitched. As for a pamphleteer, he takes place of none but of the authors of single sheets, and of that fraternity who publish their labours on certain days, or on every day of the week. I do not find that the precedency among the individuals, in this, latter class of writers, is yet settled." For my own part, I have had so strict a regard to the " Is yet settled."] Humoro...« less