After all, the world has not, as I at first superficially believed, so keen a want of a complete history of swindling: for how many books have been written which, although not professedly treating of the theme, are, by their very subject, works of reference and authority in the matter! What, for instance, is much of _Ancient History_? What _The Lives of the Roman Emperors_? What _The History of Conquests_? What _The History of Discovery_—from the first finding of Mesopotamia to the last providential flight upon New Zealand? If men will read not with their eyes alone, but with understanding hearts, how much is there in all these works, in all these narratives, that is indeed no other than materials for a complete body of swindling? Loose pearls that need stringing—scattered lights to be brought to one point? Indeed, to a contemplative mind, to a reader properly prepared for the perusal of history and biography, it is almost impossible for him to open a volume from which he should not gather knowledge of a swindling kind. It is often the very staple of a book, though to the shame of many writers, I grieve to say it, the subject is most ungenerously disguised under foreign trappings—passed off under a false name. Hence, reflecting that if men will look round them, they are not wholly destitute of works containing the philosophy of swindling on a grand historical scale—on an enlarged and transcendental plan—I shall endeavour to prevail upon myself to become merely useful, leaving it to the poorly ambitious to glitter and to soar. Let other men make pedestals to themselves of unopened folios; they have their veneration—they are talked of, never read. I—I will descend among the crowd—will mix with my fellow-creatures—will right and left scatter among the children of innocence a “Handbook”—a veritable tome to be carried between the thumbs and fingers of men in their paths by day, and like a guardian and protecting genius to nestle in their bosoms at night. Yes, it shall be no large carcass of a book; no literary mammoth of a bygone time; a load for a shelf; but a light and dainty fairy for the palm. A “Handbook!”—Yes, there is a freshness, a beauty, a truthfulness in the name; it shall be “THE HANDBOOK OF SWINDLING!” Uncut folios, avaunt! and, thick as humming-birds in tropic groves, “Handbooks,” in green and gold, trim your glowing winglets and flutter among men.[11] Footnote 11: