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FREDERICK WARNE AND CO., PUBLISHERS,

THE CHANDOS CLASSICS.

A Series of Standard Works in

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PREFACE.

HORACE WALPOLE, in quoting from a volume of newlypublished Memoirs, certain anecdotes of striking interest, characterizes them as "worthy of being inserted in the history of mankind, which, if well chosen and well written, would precede common histories, which are but repetitions of no uncommon events." This is a high standard of excellence, which few of the anecdotebooks of modern times have attained: it has scarcely been reached by Walpole himself, whose inexhaustible fund of anecdote, of gossip, of lively and fanciful conceits, of scandal, and of bons-mots, has won for him the character of "the best letter-writer in the English. language."

The habit of collecting anecdotes has afforded recreation to the learned as well as to the gay and sprightly, in all ages. In our time, the grave Lord Eldon left the world his Anecdote-Book, acknowledged to be one of the most entertaining works of its class.

The present work aims to be a collection of the best modern anecdotes; but it has been particularly the object of the Editor to give the work a distinctive personal

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