Microcosmography

It may be reasonably asked why Dr. Bliss' edition of the Microcosmography should require a preface, and the answer is that it does not require one. It would be difficult to have a more scholarly, more adequate, more self-sufficing edition of a favourite book. Almost everything that helps the elucidation of the text, almost everything about Bishop Earle that could heighten our affection for him (there is nothing known to his disparagement) is to be found here.[B] And affection for the editor is conciliated by the way. It is not only his standard of equipment that secures this?a standard that might have satisfied Mark Pattison but also the painstaking love revealed in it, which, like every other true love, whether of men or books, will not give of that which costs it nothing. And, as a further title to our regard, Dr. Bliss is amusing at his own expense, and compares himself to Earle?s ?critic,? who swells books into folios with his comments.