Leaves between pages in an old Anglican book?

Cafe Society
1

I was looking through an old book from my great-great grandfather to list it in the odd books thread but decided to focus on the leaves. The book is certainly obscure, printed in 1721 and written by Mr Charles Leflie (Leslie).

The full title is:

***The Theological Works of the Reverend Mr Charles Leflie.

    A short and Eafy
         METHOD
      with the DEISTS,
         wherein the 
           CERTAINTY 
              of the 
       Chriftian Religion

is demonftrated by Infallible Proof from
FOUR RULES,
which are
Incompatible to any Imposture that ever
yet has been, or that can poffibly be.***

This short and easy method is contained in 2 volumes, oversized and having over 800 pages each. And when he is started with the Deists he has another title page with Jews replacing Deists. He then proceeds to tear a new asshole in Jews and Deists in support of (I guess) some subset of Martin Luther’s Protestant movement viewed through his Anglican eyes.

In other books he attacks Quakers (titled a Snake in the Grass), the Church of Rome, the Church of England, William III, and the Socinians. Whew, his sermons must have been a hoot!

But that’s not important. What is, is that about every 100 pages or so a handful of maple leaves is stuffed between the pages. Just plain, brown, flat as Hell (oops, excuse me, Chuck), maple leaves.

This is not the simple pressing of a memento leaf. Is this supposed to ward off mildew or what?

Dennis

2

Whoever owned the book before you was fond of maple leaves, and so pressed a bunch of them in a big, heavy book that they didn’t take off the shelf very often.

3

That’s how I press my leaves if I want to use them for decoration, etc. Find the heaviest book I have, usually a Stephen King book.

4

I’m familiar with pressing leaves, but this is a bit different. They are not arranged at all, just stuffed together. usually people would put leaves in a single later at least. Oh, well. They are flat and not folded so probably a mass flattening.

I wonder if carbon dating can give accurate results for things only a couple hundred years old at the most. Then I could at least guess as to who put them there. So on the outside chance I have 250 year old leaves that have been kept out of contact with sunlight and air, are they of any interest to some researcher?

Dennis

5

No.

6

If I’ve learned anything from Doctor Who, if you release one of those into the wind, it will hit some guy in the face, causing an accident that allows him to meet his future wife, who will give birth to someone important.