SUCH A BOOK!
ig books are big evils, says some old Greek, not of the vigorous type here depicted. Mr. Punch seldom agrees with anybody, and he distinctly disagrees with the Ancient in question. One big book, for instance, which is no evil, but a good, is Kelly's Post-Office Directory, with which he has been favoured, and which he has been perusing with avidity ever since it arrived. It was remarked to a clownish servant, who was eating away at a vast Cheshire cheese, that he was a long time at supper, and his triumphant answer was that a cheese of that size was not got through in a hurry. The remark, but not the clownishness, is adopted by Mr. Punch in regard to the Kelly Book. He has, as yet, read only the first thousand pages or so, but he intends to complete his labour. The volume contains the name and address of everybody, in London or the suburbs, whose name and address anybody can possibly want. Mr. Punch's own grand and brilliant idea is, to do with Kelly something like what Bayle did for Moreri. He meditates issuing a Kelly with vast notes of his own, in which he proposes to give a biography and anecdotes of everybody mentioned in the original book. As there will be several thousand volumes, the work must be published by subscriptions, which perhaps Mr. Kelly will be good enough to canvass and collect for Mr. Punch. The Kelly-Punch Biography will be a production worthy the gigantic genius of the age, and Mr. Punch admits that his collaborateur has admirably done his part of the work.