From the Editor of the “Fuller’s Worthies Library,” “Wordsworth’s Prose Works,” &c.
“Park View, Blackburn,
Lancashire, 13th July, 1875.
Dear Sir,
I got the “Westminster Drolleries” at once, and I will see after the “Merry Drollery” when published.
Go on and prosper. Mr. Ebsworth is a splendid fellow, evidently.
Yours,
A. B. Grosart.”
J. P. Collier, Esqre., has also written warmly commending the work, in private letters to the Editor, which he holds in especial honour.
From the “Academy” July 10th, 1875.
“It would be a curious though perhaps an unprofitable speculation, how far the ‘Conservative reaction’ has been reflected in our literature.... Reprints are an important part of modern literature, and in them there is a perceptible relaxation of severity. Their interest is no longer mainly philological. Of late, the Restoration has been the favourite period for revival. Its dramatists are marching down upon us from Edinburgh, and the invasion is seconded by a royalist movement in Lincolnshire. A Boston publisher has begun a series of drolleries—intended, not for the general public, but for those students who can afford to pay handsomely for their predilection for the byways of letters.