INTRODUCTION. I HAVE lived to see a great variety of useful books, in the numerous classes of English literature, of dates between the period at which Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne and the close of the seventeenth century, which had hitherto been neglected and considered as of little more value than waste paper, I have lived to see these books emerge within the last ten years into notice, to rise daily in price, and to have their contents examined and duly appreciated! I consider the revival of this taste a real benefit to literature, a praise-worthy recovery of intellectual stores, which productions of a more novel attraction had pushed into oblivion, and a return to a standard not only of more solid information but often of a more chaste as well as more classical style. It is to be lamented that Mr. Dibdin has not had time to compile his promised "English B De Bure." It would have been a most instructive, as well as interesting work. Meanwhile I am reluctant totally to withhold the continued application of that helping hand, which for nine years I have given to these subjects. We know how soon small particles of information, where there is no immediate motive or storehouse to preserve them, are lost; and we know also by what sure, though imperceptible, progress these sinall particles accumulate into large and useful volumes. Thus an hour in a day, given to this occupation, which might otherwise be idle, leaves at the end of the year a substantia. and profitable mark of its passage. I will not anticipate objections, nor defend myself before I am censured. Let those who delight to find fault, have their own way; let them blame the ardour of my bibliographical love, and the imprudence of thus involving myself in new and unprofitable labours, when it may be said, that I have already more on my hands than I can grasp Let it pass! I amuse myself at least; and when I am gone, shall have left some trace of my existence behind mė: not táquela ad birou dout a trendi If I can command the time, (to which amidst all my other avocations I look,) I will &traces of qu'il etor * In the Censura Literaria, ten vols. 8vo. and British Bib liographer, four vols. 8vo. |