Now, with all modesty, we submit, that for the title of such a work as
we have in view, and have endeavoured to describe, no word could be so
proper as "NOTES." Can any man, in his wildest dream of imagination,
conceive of any thing that may not be--nay, that has not been--treated
of in a _note?_ Thousands of things there are, no doubt, which cannot be
sublimed into poetry, or elevated into history, or treated of with
dignity, in a stilted text of any kind, and which are, as it is called,
"thrown" into notes; but, after all, they are much like children sent
out of the stiff drawing-room into the nursery, snubbed to be sure by
the act, but joyful in the freedom of banishment. We were going to say
(but it might sound vainglorious), where do things read so well as in
notes? but we will put the question in another form:--Where do you so
well test an author's learning and knowledge of his subject?--where do
you find the pith of his most elaborate researches?--where do his most
original suggestions escape?--where do you meet with the details that
fix your attention at the time and cling to your memory for ever?--where
do both writer and reader luxuriate so much at their case, and feel that
they are wisely discursive?--But if we pursue this idea, it will be
scarcely possible to avoid something which might look like self-praise;
and we content ourselves for the present with expressing our humble
conviction that we are doing a service to writers and readers, by
calling forth materials which they have themselves thought worth notice,
but which, for want of elaboration, and the "little leisure" that has
not yet come, are lying, and may lie for ever, unnoticed by others, and
presenting them in an unadorned _multum-in-parvo_ form.
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