Many writers have been laid under contribution, from those who, like THOMSON, BLOOMFIELD, and the gifted but hapless JOHN CLARE, have spent their strength chiefly in description, to those who, with COWPER, BURNS, and many more, have had their deeper thoughts quickened by the wintry life around them. Poems or fragments worth preserving have been taken from some of our elder English writers, and of our less known poets; while of American authors, BRYANT, LONGFELLOW, and WHITTIER, with a few of inferior name, have much enriched the collection. The appeal to mutual sympathy and active benevolence which this season peculiarly enforces, is urged with much pathos and force in not a few of the following pieces. Winter brings out the contrasts of life; the extremes of social enjoyment and of human distress appear side by side: it is the time for the compassionate heart and the helping hand: and in all this there is material for the highest poetry too. Then we can never forget that Winter is consecrated to our thoughts by the Advent of the SON OF MAN. Whether our Christmas accurately represents the date of the Nativity is still an open question; although the weight of modern opinion seems, on the whole, in accord with the early tradition. But whatever may have been the chronological fact, the appropriateness and beauty of the association have indissolubly linked this Festival with the "Winter wild.” It is hoped, therefore, that the Christmas Carols introduced will be felt to be in harmony with the rest of the volume while the brief Appendix, giving an account of some of the earliest of these compositions, with the ancient music, will, we are persuaded, be welcomed by many readers. The artists, whose sketches have been engraved for this volume by Mr. WHYMPER, have endeavoured to be true to the spirit of the several poems. The work is offered, not only as a companion of dark Winter hours, but as a memento of the thoughts and occupations connected with them that may not be inappropriate when "the winter is past, The rain is over and gone ; The flowers appear on the earth; The time of the singing of birds is come, And the voice of the turtle is heard in the land." |