cuftom, not only among the authors, but the printers too of thofe times, to make him a prefent of a copy of whatever they published; which, by the way, must have been a confiderable help towards the very large collection of books, which he himself made.

To read fuch vaft numbers as he did, he latterly made ufe of a method as extraordinary, as any thing I have hitherto mentioned of him. When a book firft came into

his hands, he would look the title page all over, then dip here and there in the preface, dedication, and advertisements, if there were any; and then caft his eyes on each of the divifions, the different fections, or chapters, and then he would be able for ever to know what that book contained: For he remembered as fteadily, as he conceived rapidly.

It was after he had taken

to this way of fore-shortening his reading, if I may be allowed fo

odd

odd an expreffion; and I think, I rather may, because he conceived the matter almost as compleatly in this short way, as if he had read it at full length; that a priest who had composed a panegyric on one of his favorite faints, brought it to MAGLIABECHI, as a prefent. He read it over the very way above mentioned; only the title page, and the heads of the chapters; and then thanked him very kindly, "For his ex"cellent treatise." The author, in fome pain, afked him, "whe

"ther

"ther that was all that he in

MAG

"tended to read of his book?" MAGLIABECHI Cooly answered, "Yes; for I know very well every thing that is in it." My author for this anecdote endeavoured to account for it in the following manner. LIABECHI, fays he, knew all that the writers before had faid of this faint; he knew this particular father's turn and character; and from thence judged, what he would chufe out of them, and what he would omit. If this way of accounting for

fo

fo extraordinary a thing may not seem fatisfactory to fome, it muft at least be allowed to be ingenious by all.

MAGLIABECHI had a local memory too of the places where every book stood; as in his mafter's fhop at first, and in the Pitti, and feveral other libraries afterwards: And feems to have carried this farther, than only in relation to the collections of books with which he was perfonally acquainted. One day the Great Duke fent for