I am sorry not to have been able to persuade my old friend, George
Radford, who wrote the paper on 'Falstaff' in the former volume, to
contribute anything to the second series of _Obiter Dicta_. In order to
enjoy the pleasure of reading your own books over and over again, it is
essential that they should be written either wholly or in part by
somebody else.
Critics will probably be found ready to assert that this little book has
no right to exist, since it exhibits nothing worthy of the name of
research, being written by one who has never been inside the reading-room
of the British Museum. Neither does it expound any theory, save the
unworthy one that literature ought to please; nor does it so much as
introduce any new name or forgotten author to the attention of what is
facetiously called 'the reading public.'
But I shall be satisfied with a mere _de facto_ existence for the book,
if only it prove a little interesting to men and women who, called upon
to pursue, somewhat too rigorously for their liking, their daily duties,
are glad, every now and again, when their feet are on the fender, and
they are surrounded by such small luxuries as their theories of life will
allow them to enjoy, to be reminded of things they once knew more
familiarly than now, of books they once had by heart, and of authors they
must ever love.
The first two papers are here printed for the first time; the others have
been so treated before, and now reappear, pulled about a little, with the
kind permission of the proper parties.
3, NEW SQUARE, LINCOLN'S INN.
_April_, 1887.