Preface. LITTLE prefatory remark is needed to the Second Series of the COMMONPLACE BOOK of the late Robert Southey. Like the former volume, it is complete in itself, and contains matter equally curious, diversified, interesting, amusing, and instructive. Considerable pains has been given to the Spanish and Portuguese extracts (some of the earliest, and some of the latest, of the gifted Collector's gleanings), contained under the heading, SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LITERATURE; but the Editor is afraid, owing to the rarity of the volumes from which many of them are taken, that errors will have escaped his notice. Any corrections forwarded to him by competent scholars will be carefully attended to in a future edition. It has not been thought advisable to disarrange the several packets which Southey had so laboriously put together, otherwise many extracts would have been transposed. For example, great portions of the Series headed MIDDLE AGES, the Editor would have appended to Collections for ENGLISH Manners and Literature. It will be observed that the order of the Publisher's Prospectus has not been rigorously adhered to. On examination of the several papers it was found impossible. What is here omitted will be given in the shape of Frag. ments in the Fourth and last Series. The omissions are chiefly as regards East Indian, Spanish and Portuguese, American, and Miscellaneous, Geography. I may end these introductory remarks with the words of Barrow: "The reading of books, what is it but consulting with the wisest men of all ages and all conditions, who thereby communicate to us their most deliberate thoughts, choicest notions, and best inventions, couched in good expressions, and digested in exact method?" VICARAGE, WEST TARBING, SUSSEX, October 29, 1849. JOHN WOOD WARTER. |