PREFACE. 



When we announced our intention of publishing Notes and Queries, we expressed a 

 hope that it would become every body's Common-place Book — a repertory in which 

 reading men would make Notes for the use of their brethren " of any elucidation of a 

 " doubtful phrase or disputed passage — any illustration of an obsolete custom hitherto 

 ** unnoticed — any biographical anecdote or precise date hitherto unrecorded — any 

 " book or any edition hitherto unknown, or imperfectly described " — which they 

 might stumble upon in the course of their inquiries. 



How completely our hope has been realised, what an accumulation of materials on 

 almost every branch of historical and literary research has been garnered up in the 

 pages of Notes and Queries by the kindness of our friends, we record with pride 

 asd thankfulness. 



At the end of every successive half-year we have endeavoured to make these 

 materials available by adding to every volume a copious Index. But Time soon 

 renders unavailing the means we use to defeat his influence. A search through our 

 separate Indexes has become a work of time and trouble ; and therefore, when we 

 determined to bring our First Series to a close on the completion of the Twelfth 

 Volume, we at the same time resolved to make the literary riches accumulated during 

 the first six years of our existence permanently and easily available, by the publication 

 of a complete Index. We felt bound thus to help, as best we could, those who had so 

 kindly and so constantly given us their invaluable assistance. 



That Index is now before them. It is not a mere throwing together of the 

 twelve separate Indexes which have already been published. It is a new and enlarged 

 Index, based upon its predecessors. That it is a perfect Index, we will not insist, for 

 who ever saw an Index which might be so described ? but how complete it is, a glance 



