In our opening Address we carefully avoided any thing at all approaching
to a boast of what we would, or even what we hoped to perform. We stated
that "we would rather give a specimen than a description." We are now in
like manner unwilling to point as exultingly, as we think we might, to
the position which we have already taken. But there is a vast difference
between vain boasting and the expression of an honest satisfaction; and
it would be worse than an affectation of humility--it would be a mean
hypocrisy--if we did not express heartily and unreservedly the gratitude
we owe and feel to those who have encouraged us by their friendly advice
and able pens. We have opened a Literary Exchange, and we have had the
gratification to see that men whose learning and talents the public
recognise--leaders in their several branches of inquiry--have at once
taken advantage of it. They have proved the necessity for some such
medium of communication, as well as their good-will to the one now
offered to them, by a gathering in its behalf which the public will
respect, and of which we may well feel proud.
Some whose good opinion we most value, and who have spoken most warmly
in favour of our plan, have proved the sincerity of their praise by
suggestions of improvement in its detail, and hints for its further
extension. They may feel assured that such hints and such suggestions
shall not be lost sight of. For instance, one respected correspondent
hints that as we have very properly adopted Dr. Maitland's suggestion
with regard to Herbert's edition of Ame's _Typographical Antiquities_,
namely, that of "offering a receptacle for illustrations, additions, and
corrections," and invited "our readers to take advantage of our columns
to carry out Dr. Maitland's suggestions," we should open our columns
with equal readiness to the correction and illustration of more modern
and more popular works. We entirely concur with him; but in reference to
this subject there is a distinction which must be borne in mind. Our own
literature, like that of every other country, consists of two classes of
books. We have the books of pretenders to knowledge, the hasty, crude,
imperfect, but often for the time attractive and popular volumes of the
Ned Purdons of the day. These books have a use--such as it is--and thus
answer their purpose; but it would be for the credit of our literature,
and save a world of trouble, if they were forgotten as soon as they had
done so. To illustrate such books, to add to their information or
correct their blunders, would be useless and almost ridiculous. They
should be left to die of mere powerlessness and exhaustion, or to wither
under the wholesome influence of a just and manly criticism.
But there are books of another kind--books {18} which our worthy
bibliopoles designate as "standard works." These are the books of
competent workmen--books which are the result of honest labour and
research, and which from the moment of their publication assume a
permanent station in our national literature. Even in such books there
are many things incomplete, many things erroneous. But it is the
interest of every man that such books should be rendered as complete as
possible; and whatever tends to illustrate or correct works of that
class will be sure of insertion in our columns.
We would point to Macaulay's _England_, and Hallam's _Introduction to
the Literary History of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries_, his _Middle
Ages_, and his _Constitutional History_, and we may add, as
illustrations of a different kind, _The Annals of the Stage_ of our
excellent friend Mr. Collier, and _The Handbook of London_ of our valued
contributor Mr. Peter Cunningham, as examples of the sort of
publications to which we allude. Such were the books we had in our mind,
when we spoke in our Prospectus of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" becoming,
through the inter-communication of our literary friends, "a most useful
supplement to works already in existence--a treasury towards enriching
future editions of them."
Another correspondent--a bibliographical friend--suggests that, for
various reasons, which bibliographers will appreciate, our Prospectus
should have a place in the body of our work. We believe that many of our
readers concur in a wish for its preservation, and it will therefore be
found in the Number now before them.
One suggestion again urges us to look carefully to Foreign Literature,
and another points out the propriety of our making our paper as British
as possible, so that our topographical facts should, as far as
practicable, be restricted to the illustration of British counties, and
our biographical ones to such as should contribute towards a Biographia
Brittanica.
All these, and many other expressions of sympathy and promises of
support, poured in upon us within a few hours after our birth. No one of
them shall be forgotten; and if for a time our pages seem to indicate
that we have made a QUERY as to the adoption of any suggestion, let our
kind contributors be assured that there is no hint which reaches us,
whether _at present_ practicable or not, that we do not seriously and
thankfully "make a NOTE of."
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