Various

“ Now, there must be moderation in reading as in other good things; and the ordinary man will probably seek some halfway house between the "catholic taste" of Charles Lamb which excluded "all those volumes which no gentleman's library should be without" and the omnivorous appetite of Macaulay, who would master on a voyage to India what many men are labouring all their lives to skim. ”

“ THERE is no more delightful pastime than to lecture other people on the choice of books. Carlyle, in recent times, began the game, and since his Edinburgh address every lecturer has had his own select library to recommend. But the choice of books, if a pleasant pastime to the lecturer, is none the less an important matter for his audience, and Sir John Lubbock did well in selecting it for the subject of his inaugural address to the Working Men's College last month. ”

“ We do not take it that the contributors to this little volume expect the general reader to master more than the whole of any one list, certainly not the sum of them all. Every one will study what he most affects, and the value of this collection lies, we venture to think, in this—that among the variety of good judges here gathered in judgment every reader will find one to advise him according to his taste. ”