Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London

I beg leave to return my sincere thanks to the community, for the flattering reception with which this undertaking has been honoured: -A more convincing proof of that approbation which every Author most ardently desires seldom occurs, and still more seldom is expressed in so short a period as between the dates of the first appearance of the book and the present preface (March 1808 and May 1809.) It had been my intention, from the moment I thought of tracing the habits of the residents of our Metropolis, to give a history of them from the earliest ages to the close of the last century: those early ages should certainly have been noticed first; but the length of time required for collecting materials, and the heavy expences attending printing, made it imperiously necessary that I should offer to the publick the least difficult portion of my labours, in order to ascertain whether I might proceed in safety with the remainder. The result has surpassed my hopes, and roused me to redoubled exertion in preparing for the press a volume including Anecdotes of Manners and Customs from the Roman Invasion to 1700, in which will be found most of the apparent omissions discoverable in this; but I shall ever reserve a right to myself of saying nothing on a subject of which I have an imperfect knowledge, through impediments not always to be explained without a charge of prolixity