n the _Athenaeum_ is _to enable
those who have been puzzled by one or two discoverers to see how they look
in a lump_. The only question is, has the selection been fairly made? To
this my answer is, that no selection at all has been made. The books are,
without exception, those which I have in my own library; and I have taken
_all_--I mean all of the kind: Heaven forbid that I should be supposed to
have no other books! But I may have been a collector, influenced in choice
by bias? I answer that I never have collected books of this sort--that is,
I have never searched for them, never made up my mind to look out for this
book or that. I have bought what happened to come in my way at show or
auction; I have retained what came in as part of the _undescribed_ portion
of miscellaneous auction lots; I have received a few from friends who found
them among what they called their rubbish; and I have preserved books sent
to me for review. In not a few instances the books have been bound up with
others, unmentioned at the back; and for years I knew no more I had them
than I knew I had Lord Macclesfield's speech on moving the change of Style,
which, after I had searched shops, etc. for it in vain, I found had been
reposing on my own shelves for many years, at the end of a summary of
Leibnitz's philosophy. Consequently, I may positively affirm that the
following list is formed by accident and circumstance alone, and that it
truly represents the casualties of about a third of a century. For
instance, the large proportion of works {8} on the quadrature of the circle
is not my doing: it is the natural share of this subject in the actual run
of events.

[I keep to my plan of inserting only such books as I possessed in 1863,
except by casual notice in aid of my remarks. I have found several books on
my shelves which ought to have been inserted. These have their titles set
out at the commencement of their articles, in leading paragraphs; the
casuals are without this formality.[6]]

Before proceeding to open the Budget, I say something on my personal
knowledge of the class of discoverers who square the circle, upset Newton,
etc. I suspect I know more of the English class than any man in Britain. I
never kept any reckoning; but I know that one year with another--and less
of late years than in earlier time--I have talked to more than five in each
year, giving more than a hundred and fifty specimens. Of this I am sure,
that it is my own fault