3.Years has fhew'd its Usefulness to you and feveral of your Friends to whom you have communicated it. There is no need I should tell you how useful it has been to me after five and twenty Years Experience, as I told you eight Years fince, when I had the honour to wait on you at Paris, and when I might have been inftructed by your learned and agreeable Difcourfe. What I aim at now by this Letter, is to teftifie publickly the Efteem and Refpect I have for you, and to convince you how much I am, Sir, your, &c.

Before I enter on my Subject, it is fit to acquaint the Reader, that this Tract is dif pofed in the fame manner that the CommonPlace-Book ought to be difpofed. It will be understood by reading what follows, what is the meaning of the Latin Titles on the top of the backfide of each Leaf, and at the bottom of this Page:

EBIONITE.] In eorum Evangelio, quod fecundum Hebræos dicebatur, hiftoria qua babetur Matth. xix. 16. & feqq. ut alia quædam, erat interpolata in hunc Modum Dixit ad eum alter divitum Magifter quid bonum faciens vivam ? Dixit ei Homo legem & Prophetas fac. 4.Refpondit ad eum, feci, Dixit ei: vade,

vende

ADVERSARIORUM METHODUS.] 4. I take a Paper Book of what fize pleafe. I divide the two firft Pages that face one another by parallel Lines into five and twenty equal parts, every fifth Line black, the other red. I then cut them perpendicularly by other Lines that I draw from the top to the bottom of the Page, as you may fee in the Table prefixed. I put about the middle of each five fpaces one of the twenty Letters I defign to make ufe of, and a little forward in each fpace the five Vowels one below another in their natural Order. This is the Index to the whole Volume how big foever it may be.

1

The Index being made after this manner, I leave a Margin in all the other Pages of the Book, of about the largeness of an Inch in a Volume in Folio, or a little larger, and in a lefs Volume, fmaller in proportion.

If I would put any thing in my COMMON-PLACE-BOOK, I find out a Head to which I may refer it.

Each

5.

Each Head ought to be fome important and effential Word to the matter in hand, and in that Word regard is to be had to the first Letter, and the Vowel that follows it; for upon these two Letters depend all the use of the Index.

I omit three Letters of the Alphabet as of no ufe to me, viz. K. Y. W. which are fupplied by C. I. U. that are equivalent to them. I put the Letter Q. that is always followed with an U. in the fifth fpace of Z. By throwing Q. laft in my Index, I preferve the regularity of my Index, and diminish not in the leaft its extent; for it feldom happens that there is any Head begins with Z. U. I have found none in the five and twenty Years I have used this Method. If neverthelefs it be neceffary, nothing hinders but that one may make a Reference after Q. U. provided it be done with any kind of distinction; but for more exactnefs a place may be aflign'd for Q. U. below the Index, as I have formerly done. When I meet with any thing that I think fit to put into my Common-Place-Book, I firft find a proper Head. Suppofe, for example, that the V Head be EPISTOLA, I look into the Index

for

ADVERSARIORUM METHODUS.] V for the firft Letter and the following 6. Vowel which in this inftance are E. I. If in the space mark'd E. I. there is any number, That directs me to the Page defign'd for words that begin with an E. and whose first Vowel, after the initial Letter, is I. I must then write under the word Epiftola in that Page what I have to remark. I write the Head in large Letters, and begin a little way out into the Margin, and I continue on the Line in writing what I have to fay. I obferve conftantly this Rule, that only the Head appears in the Margin, and that it be continued on without ever doubling the Line in the Margin, by which means the Heads will be obvious at firft fight.

If I find no number in the Index in the space E. I. I look into my Book for the firft backfide of a Leafe that is not written in, which in a Book where there is yet nothing but the Index must be p. 2. I write then in my Index after E. I. the number 2. and the Head Epiftola at the top of the Margin of the fecond Page, and all that I put under that Head in the fame Page. as you fee I have done in the fecond Page of this Method. From that time the Clafs E, I, is wholly in poffeffion

of

7. of the fecond and third Pages. They are to be.
employ'd only on words that begin with an E.
and whofe nearest Vowel is an I, as Ebionita
(See the bottom of the third Page) Epifcopus,
Echinus, Edictum Efficacia, &c. The reafon why
I begin always at the top of the back-fide of
a Leaf, and affign to one Clafs two Pages that
face one another, rather than an entire Leaf,
is, because the Heads of the Clafs appear all
at once, without the trouble of turning over a
Leaf.

Every time that I would write a new Head,
I look firft in my Index for the Characteri-
ftick Letters of the word, and I fee by the
number that follows, what the Page is that is
affigned to the Clafs of that Head. If there
is no number, I must look for the firft back-
fide of a Page that is blank. I then fet down
the number in the Index, and defign that Page
with that of the right fide of the following
Leaf to this new Clafs. Let it be, for example,
the word Adverfaria; if I fee no number in the
fpace A. E. I feek for the first back-fide of
a Leaf, which being at p. 4. I fet down in the
fpace A. E. the number 4. and in the fourth
Page, the Head ADVERSARIA with all
that I write under it, as I have already in-
V formed you. From this time the fourth Page
with

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