QUAINT OLD PREFACES

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 18, 21 July 1934, Page 24

QUAINT OLD PREFACES

The origin of "preface" involves a pleasant bit of * antiquity. Nares says that "Preface" was long a familiar exclamation of welcome at a dinner or other meal, equivalent to "much good may it do you." From what language derived was long uncertain, but he gives etymological evidence that we had it from the Norman Romance language. The prefaces of old books are remarkably quaint and amusing, and are generally written in an offhand, careless style.1 An ancient almanac in the Harleian collection has the following preface:— "To All who Buy Almanacs.—Gentlemen!, A good New Year to ye, and I believe you wish the like to us too, for that is but manners; but this is not all I have'to say to ye. Do you think these sheets .were printed for nothing? No, the bookseller swears that if he thought you would not have brought urn, he would, never have published urn, and he. swears further, that if you don't buy urn now, ho wil never print urn again. Thus, you see, 'tis in your power either to vex or please him. Do which you will, and so farewell."

Geoffrey Whitney, in offering his delightful "Emblems" (1856) says: "Trusting that my good will will be weighed as well as the work, and that a pearlo shall not bo looked for in a poor man's purse, I submit my doings herein to your censures." In a poetical address, signed "5.G.," prefixed to William Stokes's "Vaulting Master" Y1652) horse exercise is thus recommended:

"This to your weakened limbs will strength restore, Making that brawne that was but veal before."