s, daily, weekly,
monthly, or quarterly, there is not one especially intended to assist
Men of Letters and of research in their pursuits. Literary Journals
there are in abundance, many of them of the highest degree of merit,
which in their Reviews and Announcements show the current sayings and
doings of the literary world. There is not, however, one among them in
which the reading many may note, for the use of himself and his
fellow-labourers in the wide field of Literature, the minute facts which
he meets with from time to time, and the value of which he so well
knows, or insert his _Queries_, in the hope of receiving satisfactory
answers from some of his literary brethren.

NOTES AND QUERIES, A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, is,
as its name implies, intended to supply this deficiency. Those who meet
with facts worthy of preservation, may record them in its columns; while
those, again, who are pursuing literary inquiries, may, through this
MEDIUM, ask for information on points which have baffled their own
individual researches. How often is even the best informed writer
stopped by an inability to solve some doubt or understand some obscure
allusion which suddenly starts up before him! How often does a reading
man stumble upon some elucidation of a doubtful phrase, or disputed
passage;--some illustration of an obsolete custom hitherto
unnoticed;--some biographical anecdote or precise date hitherto
unrecorded;--some book, or some edition, hitherto unknown or imperfectly
described.

This Publication, as everybody's common-place book, will be a depository
for those who find such materials, and a resource for those who are in
search of them; and if the Editor is enabled by the inter-communication
of his literary friends, to realise his expectations, it will form a
most useful supplement to works already in existence,--a treasury for
enriching future editions of them,--and an important contribution
towards a more perfect history than we yet possess of our Language, our
Literature, and those to whom we owe them.

NOTES AND QUERIES will be published every Saturday, price 3d., or
stamped, 4d., and may be had, by order, of all Booksellers and Newsmen,
and will also be issued in Parts at the end of each Month.

Communications for the Editor may be addressed to the Publisher, Mr.
GEORGE BELL, No. 186. Fleet Street, by whom also Advertisements will be
received.

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