your Prospectus, because it seems to hold out a hope that your intended
work will furnish what has long been a _desideratum_ in literature. We
really do want something that may form a "supplement to works already in
existence--a treasury for enriching future editions of them;" while it
may also receive (as I have no doubt you meant to include,) such
contributions of moderate extent, as may tend to render fuller and more
correct some works which have little or no chance of future editions. In
this way you may be of great use in every department of literature; and
especially in works of reference. With them, indeed, correctness is
everything; perfect accuracy is not to be attained, and the nearest
possible approximation to it can be made only by many little careful
steps, backwards as well as forwards.

By works of reference, however, I do not mean Dictionaries, though I
would include them, as a class of works for which I have a singular
respect, and to which my remark particularly applies. There are many
other books, and some which very properly aspire to the tile of History,
which are, in fact and practically, books of reference, and of little
value if they have not the completeness and accuracy which should
characterise that class of works. Now it frequently happens to people
whose reading is at all discursive, that they incidentally fall upon
small matters of correction or criticism, which are of little value to
themselves, but would be very useful to those who are otherwise engaged,
if they knew of their existence.

I might perhaps illustrate this matter by referring to various works;
but it happens to be more in my way to mention Herbert's edition of
Ames's _Typographical Antiquities_. It may be hoped that some day or
other, the valuable matter of which it consists will be reduced to a
better form and method; for it seems hardly too much to say, that he