The foregoing studies suggest two strands of commonplacing circa 1700. The first was thecollection of authoritative knowledge, usually in the form of quotations. The second was thecollection of personal or natural knowledge, with Francis Bacon’s lists, desiderata and apho-risms serving as early examples. While Moss has shown that the first strand was losing popular-ity by the 1680s, recent scholarship has shown that the second retained momentum through theeighteenth century,9especially in scientific dictionaries,10instructional cards,11catalogues,12
loose-leaf manuscripts,13syllabi14and, most especially, notebooks.15
There are two strands of commonplacing around 1700: one is the traditional collection of authoritative knowledge while the second was an emergent collection of more personal knowledge and exploration.