Handsomely printed, in Two Volumes, Demy $vo. Price 11. 1s. in Late Fellow of Magdalen College, and Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. With some Account of the Author by a Sister, and a Portrait engraved by J. ROMNEY, from a Miniature by F. NASH, in the Possession of the Family. PREFACE. To those who may have made the poetry of this country a subject of serious and deliberate investigation, the following extracts will afford neither entertainment nor instruction, as their own track of reading must have previously familiarized their several contents. From such, therefore, I have not the vanity to expect either thanks or attention: but as enquirers of this kind are comparatively few, a large and a respectable body of the public remains, to whom a work of this nature seems not improperly adapted; a work, that might at once do justice to deserted merit, diversify the materials of common reading, and by opening fresh sources of innocent amusement, tend to strengthen, and co-operate with, that taste for poetical antiquities which for some time past has been considerably advancing. Those who have long been accustomed to the correctness and refinement of a classical course of study, whose minds are become pampered with the luxuries of Rome and of Athens, soon form a habit of turning with aversion, from those paths of science which are at first, perhaps, uninviting, and apparently but little congenial with their favourite pursuits; from such readers the moth and the spider are in no danger of molestation: trusting to the taste and the diligence of others, it is through the medium of compilation they are generally made acquainted with the obscurer poets of their country. To constitute a relish for the black letter, a certain degree of literary Quixotism is highly requisite: he who is unwilling to penetrate the barren heath and the solitary desert; he who cannot encounter weariness, perplexity, and disgust; he who is not actuated by an enthusiasm for his employment, is no true knight, and unfit for such service. That species of occasional readers to whom business is the object of life, who may chance to while away their hour of relaxation with a book, it is humbly hoped, will be here as likely to meet with a moral sentiment, a good image, a pathetic incident, or a pointed reflection, that may strike the fancy, the judgment, or the heart, as in any miscellany of modern poetry whatever: perhaps from the advantages of novelty here offered, they may stand a better chance of losing their indifference, and after roving with the usual listlessness of a fickle appetite, may at last find a something to settle upon with pleasure. Of similar publications, I do not think it necessary to give a very particular account; indeed I know of no one that comes under that title exactly. What, however, I have chiefly found those which may be perversely considered as similar, I will state as briefly as possible, and how far in the execution of my plan I have deviated from them. The compilations I have hitherto met with, from being either too limited or too extensive, have always appeared to me imperfect: some, under a variety of quaint and affected titles, selected from authors far too well known* to stand in need of such partial and disjointed recommendation, and who in fact hold a most distinguished rank: in the school of the people; others I have found mere common-place books of mutilated quotations, adapted to the illustration only of an alphabetical list of given subjects, without, as it should seem, the most distant reference to the beauties of composition. Nor are there wanting those, which seem formed, almost at random, from the great mass of our Poetry, both ancient and modern, where we must not be alarmed if we meet with our friend, or our neighbour, in the same page with a Shakspeare, a Milton, and a Popet. Selections expressly of beauties from modern books of credit, unless immediately in * As Cowley, Dryden, Waller, Denham. + From this censure it is but justice to except The Muses Library, a work which was intended to exhibit a systematic view of the progress of our poetry, from its origin with the Saxons to the reign of Charles the Second. It was begun with fidelity and spirit by a Mrs. Cowper, with the assistance of Mr. Oldys: only one volume appeared, which is very scarce. The Quintessence of English Poetry, 3 vols. Lond. 1740, a work comprehending a considerable range of our old poets, is, I think, the next in point of merit; the preface is neatly written. Dr. Goldsmith, who was only unhappy, amidst all the works he undertook, in his Beauties of English Poetry, disgraced himself by a very superficial and hasty compilation of the kind. |