CONTENTS Of books about books; and incidentally of critics Of gas-logs and the private library; with some facts about collectors and collecting M554871 21001 LIBRARY A PREFACE BOOK must have an index, a title-page, and a preface. Such is the unwritten law, but no one pays much attention to a preface unless it is short. Barry Cornwall said: "Always read the preface to a book. It places you on vantage-ground and enables you to survey more completely the book itself. You frequently also discern the character of the author from the preface." More than a century ago the ingenious Mr. John Horne Tooke published the first volume of The Diversions of Purley, but he made his philology subordinate to his peculiar philosophy. “Diversions," I understand, are those things which turn or draw the mind from care, business, or study, and thus rest and amuse. In these discursive papers I have aimed to keep within the definition. They must not be regarded too seriously, and those who may feel disposed to read them will remember that they are meant to be taken up and to be laid aside at odd moments, the confidences of one who claims to share with |