NOT GENERALLY KNOWN,

Familiarly Explained.

A BOOK FOR OLD AND YOUNG.

BY JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.

AUTHOR OF "WALKS AND TALKS ABOUT LONDON," "CURIOSITIES OF HISTORY," ETC.

LOCKWOOD & CO., 7, STATIONERS' HALL COURT,

LUDGATE HILL.

MDCCCLXVII.

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION.

GENTLE READER,

The sale of Nineteen Thousand copies of the present volume within little more than Two Years of its publication proves its object and character to have been warmly recognised by the reading public.

As the taste of the day favours out-of-the-way reading, I have from its winding paths garnered into this little book a few of its stores for your special gratification. Although the result may not be recommended by the quaint fancy of the British Apollo, or the profundity of the Athenian Oracle,—the Notes and Queries* of other days, I have not been unmindful of the value of pith and point upon subjects which you are not asked to take for granted in every instance, but in many cases to weigh and consider.

You may, perhaps, say," Your volume contains but a small portion of the Things not generally Known.' Granted; but here are no fewer than FIVE HUNDRED groups of instances—in the main, from Popular Science and Antiquarianism: the Heavens and the Earth; the Sea and the Air; Sight and Sound; Life and Death; the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms; the Origins of House and Home; the Festivals of our Calendar; historical glances at Laws and Customs; Dignitaries of Church and State; National Characteristics; Wonders of our Inventive Age; and a few Curiosities of the Art and Literature of early times.

For

This Edition has been corrected throughout; and several new Articles have been substituted for others of minor interest. this improvement I am mainly indebted to friendly Correspondents. To conclude with Montaigne's words of charming simplicity: "I am wise enough to know, by the measure of my own abilities, that my soil is incapable of producing any of those rich flowers that are here set and growing; and that all the fruits of my own growth are not worth any one of them."

66

I. T.

*This work, commenced by my fellow antiquary and bibliographer, Mr. W. J. Thoms, in 1849, is now flourishing, not only learned in itself, but the source of much learning in others. To Mr. Thoms, however, as the originator of this "medium of intercommunication," authors as well as readers are specially bound to be grateful.