Excerpt from Rhode Island Historical Tracts, No. 14

Some years since, in studying Robert. Bay1ie's Dzswaswe From t/ze Errours of t/ze T z'me, I came upon three citations which he credits to Williams, Of the name Heathen; and since that time have diligently searched in every probable locality within reach for such a book; putting it last year, under this guessed title, into my Bib liographical Collections, in the hope of so calling attention to, and finding, it. Almost my first opening of the Catalogue of the library of the British Museum the last winter was to Williams's name, trust ing that, since former searches there, the missing treatise might have been added to their shelves by purchase, or exhumed from some as yet not fully assorted and described riches of the past. My endeavor was vain. But 26 Marchlast, having occasion there to consult R. Fage's Lawfulnesse of Infants Baptz'rme, that treatise, whose press mark is [e. 1189. (io)] came to my desk bringing with it, among the eight or ten pamphlets which had been bound. Together to construct the volume, the long-sought tract [e. 1189. By some accident it had remained uncatalogued, and unknown to the authorities as being in their possession. I copied it with literal exactness; have had it reprinted page by page and line by line, in all its glory of misprint and have procured the minute comparison of the proofs with the original by one of the experts of the Museum. 80 that - while making no claim to such pictorial accuracy as photo-lithography would secure - this edition of it is confidently offered to the few who will take an interest in it, as being, to all intents and purposes, the same thing as the original in their hand. I have added a few foot-notes to clear up some of the worst cases of obscurity caused by the printer's-carelessness, and probable want of authorial super vision.

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