em--nor limits to your admiration. Be it summer
or winter, there is food for sustenance, and for the gratification of
the most exquisite palate. To contemplate SUCH a performance, the
thorough-bred book-votary would travel by torch-light through
forty-eight hours of successive darkness!...: But the horses are again
neighing--for their homes. You must rouse the slumbering post-boy: for
"The bell of the church-clock strikes ONE."

* * * * *

P.S.--The late Mr. WALMSLEY--who employed me to print this present
edition--narrowly watched all our movements, and was much gratified by
the appearance of the work, so far as it had gone before his
death--frequently urged me to append a short account of the progress
of our art during the last thirty years--i.e. since the publication of
the former edition of _Bibliomania_.

The subject is too diffuse for a mere note: and during the life-time
of so many able printers as now exercise their calling in the
metropolis, it would be invidious to particularize eminence in our
profession (whereas among our immediate predecessors it is, perhaps
just to say that there were only _two_ printers of great celebrity,
the late _Mr. Bulmer_ and my late father). I shall therefore merely
mention some events which have had such influence on our art as that
the case is now very different to what it was thirty years ago, when
the good execution of printing at once testified to the skill and
industry of the printer--as he could command neither good _presses_,
_types_, nor _ink_, &c.--paper being then almost the only matter to be
had in perfection.

We have _now_ excellent and powerful iron presses--Stanhopes,
Columbians, Imperials, &c. _Then_ the celebrated specimens of
typography were produced by _miserable_ wooden presses. We have _now_
ink of splendid lustre, at a fourth of the cost of fabrication
_then_--for both Mr. Bulmer and my father were perpetually trying
expensive experiments--and not always succeeding: our ink is now to be
depended on for _standing_, it works freely, and can be had at
reasonable prices at the extensive factory of Messrs. SHACKELL and
LYONS, Clerkenwell, who made the ink used for this work.

There are several eminent engineers who make the best of presses. Our
_letter_ may safely be pronounced, if not perfect, as near perfection
as it will ever reach--and while the celebrated type-foundries of
Messrs. CASLON, Chiswell Street, and Messrs. FIGGIN