The only prospectus of the TABLE BOOK was the eight versified lines on the title-page. They appeared on New Year’s Day, prefixed to the first number; which, with the successive sheets, to the present date, constitute the volume now in the reader’s hands, and the entire of my endeavours during the half year. So long as I am enabled, and the public continue to be pleased, the TABLE BOOK will be continued. The kind reception of the weekly numbers, and the monthly parts, encourages me to hope that like favour will be extended to the half-yearly volume. Its multifarious contents and the illustrative engravings, with the help of the copious index, realize my wish, “to please the young, and help divert the wise.” Perhaps, if the good old window-seats had not gone out of fashion, it might be called a parlour-window book--a good name for a volume of agreeable reading selected from the book-case, and left lying about, for the constant recreation of the family, and the casual amusement of visitors. W. HONE. _Midsummer_, 1827. THE FRONTISPIECE. PETRARCH’S INKSTAND. Miss Edgeworth’s lines express her estimation of the gem she has the happiness to own. That lady allowed a few casts from it in bronze, and a gentleman who possesses one, and who favours the “_Table Book_” with his approbation, permits its use for a frontispiece to this volume. The engraving will not be questioned as a decoration, and it has some claim to be regarded as an elegant illustration of a miscellany which draws largely on art and literature, and on nature itself, towards its supply.