Scholarly Discoveries: Electric Boogaloo

A certain poet who resembles Steve Buscemi sent me on a mad dash for historical resources. The internet yielded up this treasure: Eunuchism Display'd, published in 1718 Charles Ollincan or Ancillon. This thing is absolutely wild. An excerpt:

THERE have been fome Men who have made themfelves Eunuchs through a Spirit of Devotion, believing that by fo doing, they might render themfelves more acceptable to God, and be more capable of working out their Salvation. But as Or£gen was the Chief, the Father, (if I may fo fay,) and the Patriarch of thefe Sort of Eunuchs, it will not be improper, in a few Words, to examine what was the real Motive that induced him to act and think after fo singular a manner.

That's directly from the PDF, where the s's look like f's. Sometimes I love being in grad school. I spent an entire afternoon tracking this manuscript down, and I was able to convince myself that it was work.