est, and possibly serve to others as an introduction and
incentive to a branch of our literary history that is not without
its fascination. But I must also own to a less unselfish motive,
for I imagined that not without its reward of delight would be a
temporary sojourn among the books which, for their boldness of
utterance or unconventional opinions, were not only not received
by the best literary society of their day, but were with ignominy
expelled from it. Nor was I wrong in my calculation._

_But could I impart or convey the same delight to others?
Clearly all that I could do was to invite them to enter on the
same road, myself only subserving the humble functions of a
signpost. I could avoid merely compiling for them a
bibliographical dictionary, but I could not treat at length of
each offender in my catalogue, without, in so exhausting my
subject, exhausting at the same time my reader's patience. I have
tried therefore to give something of the life of their history
and times to the authors with whom I came in contact; to cast a
little light on the idiosyncrasies or misfortunes of this one or
of that; but to do them full justice, and to enable the reader to
make their complete acquaintance, how was that possible with any
regard for the laws of literary proportion? All I could do was to
aim at something less dull than a dictionary, but something far
short of a history._

_I trust that no one will be either attracted or alarmed by any
anticipations suggested by the title of my book. Although
primarily a book for the library, it is also one of which no
drawing-room table need be the least afraid. If I have found
anything in my condemned authors which they would have done
better to have left unsaid, I have, in referring to their
fortunes, felt under no compulsion to reproduce their
indiscretions. But, in all of them put together, I doubt whether
there is as much to offend a scrupulous taste as in many a
latter-day novel, the claim of which to the distinction of
burning is often as indisputable as the certainty of its
regrettable immunity from that fiery but fitting fate._

_The custom I write about suggests some obvious reflections on
the mutability of our national manners. Was the wisdom of our
ancestors really so much greater than our own, as many profess
to believe? If so, it is strange with how much of that wisdom we
have learnt to dispense. One by one their old customs have fallen
away from us, and I fancy