sets of our "NOTES AND QUERIES," we have been compelled to reprint the
first four numbers.

It is with no slight feelings of pride and satisfaction that we record
the fact of a large impression of a work like the present not having
been sufficient to meet the demand,--a work devoted not to the
witcheries of poetry or to the charms of romance, but to the
illustration of matters of graver import, such as obscure points of
national history, doubtful questions of literature and bibliography, the
discussion of questionable etymologies, and the elucidation of old world
customs and observances.

What Mr. Kemble lately said so well with reference to archæology, our
experience justifies us in applying to other literary inquiries:--

"On every side there is evidence of a generous and earnest
co-operation among those who have devoted themselves to special
pursuits; and not only does this tend of itself to widen the
general basis, but it supplies the individual thinker with an
ever widening foundation for his own special study."

And whence arises this "earnest co-operation?" Is it too much to hope
that it springs from an increased reverence for the Truth, from an
intenser craving after a knowledge of it--whether such Truth regards an
event on which a throne depended, or the etymology of some household
word now familiar only to

"Hard-handed men who work in Athens here?"

We feel that the kind and earnest men who honour our "NOTES AND QUERIES"