Though I intend this preface, prelude, or proem shall occupy but a single page, and be a facile specimen of the multum in parvo school, I find I have so little to say, I might spare myself the trouble of saying that little, only it might look a little odd (excuse my nibbing my pen) if, after writing a book, which by the way, may prove no book at all, I should introduce it to my readers,—did I say “Readers?”—what a theme to dilate upon! But stop, stop, Mr. Exultation, nobody may read your book, ergo, you will have no readers. Humph! I must nib my pen again. Cooks, grocers, butchers, kitchenmaids, the roast! Let brighter visions rise: methink I see it grace every room Peckwater round: methink I see, wherever mighty Tom sonorous peals forth his solemn “Come, come, come!” the sons of Oxon fly to Tallboys’ store, or Parker’s shelves, and cry “the Book, the Book!” Methink I see in Granta’s streets a crowd for Deighton’s and for Stevenson’s—anon, “the Book, the Book,” they cry “Give us the Book!” “Quips, Quirks, and Anecdotes?” “Aye, that’s the Book!” And, then, methink I see on Camus’ side, or where the Isis by her Christ Church glides, or Charwell’s lowlier stream, methink I see (as did the Spanish Prince of yore a son of Salamanca beat his brow) some togaed son of Alma Mater beat, aye, laugh and beat his brow. And then, like Philip, I demand the cause? And then he laughs outright, and in my face he thrusts a book, and cries, “Sir, read, read, read, ha, ha, ha, ha!” and stamps and laughs the while;—and then, ye gods, it proves to be the Book,—Quips, Quirks, and Anecdotes—ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I cry you mercy, Sirs, read, read, read, read! From Eton, Harrow, Winchester, and West, come orders thick as Autumn leaves e’er fell, as larks at Dunstable, or Egypt’s plagues. The Row is in commotion,—all the world rushes by Amen Corner, or St. Paul’s: how like a summer-hive they go and come: the very Chapter’s caught the stirring theme, and, like King James at Christ Church, scents a hum.[1] E’en Caxton’s ghost stalks forth to beg a tome, and Wynkyn’s shroud in vain protests his claims. “There’s not a copy left,” cries Whitt’s or Long’s, as Caxton bolts with the extremest tome, and Wynkyn, foiled, shrinks grimly into air,

Veil’d in a cloud of scarce black-letter lore.

Had Galen’s self, sirs, ab origine, or Æsculapius, or the modern school of Pharmacopoeians drugged their patients thus, they long ago, aye, long ago, had starved; your undertakers had been gone extinct, and churchyards turned to gambol-greens, forsooth. Mirth, like good wine, no help from physic needs:—blue devils and ennui! ha, ha, ha, ha! Didst ever taste champagne? Then laugh, sirs, laugh,—“laugh and grow fat,” the maxim’s old and good: the stars sang at their birth—“Ha, ha, ha, ha!” I cry you mercy, sirs, the Book, the Book, Quips, Quirks, and Anecdotes. Oxonians hear! “Ha, ha, ha, ha!” Let Granta, too, respond. What would you more? the Book, sirs, read, read, read.

’Tis true, my work’s a diamond in the rough, and that there still are sparkling bits abroad, by wits whose wages may not be to die, would make it, aye, the very Book of Books! Let them, anon, to Cornhill wend their way (p.p.) to cut a figure in Ed. sec. 3d, or 4th, from Isis or from Cam. What if they say, as Maudlin Cole of Boyle, because some Christ-Church wits adorned his page with their chaste learning, “’Tis a Chedder cheese made of the milk of all the parish,”—Sirs, d’ye think I’d wince and call them knave or fool? Methink I’d joy to spur them to the task! Methink I see the mirth-inspired sons of Christ-Church and the rest, penning Rich Puns, Bon-mots, and Brave Conceits, for ages have, at Oxon, “borne the bell,” and oft the table set in royal roar. Methink I see the wits of Camus, too, go laughing to the task,—and then, methink, O! what a glorious toil were mine, at last, to send them trumpet-tongued through all the world!