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Introduction
27
tiful fine paper. The copy before us, which we have used for this translation, was presented to the celebrated Abbé de Saint-Léger by the publisher, whose envoi and signature it bears.
The author of this little almost unknown chef-d'œuvre is scarcely known himself except to the literary profession; since he belonged to the race, almost wholly extinct at this day, of modest and laborious scholars who cultivate learning for its own sake, and find more pleasure in adorning and strengthening their minds in the silence of the cabinet, than satisfaction in taking the universe into confidence in their smallest labours
