T the special request of the enterprising Publishers,
who were laudably anxious that a volume designed for a Prize Book in schools of a superior class, as well as a Gift Book for the drawing-room table, should commend itself no less by purity of morals, than by typographical excellence, and by beauty and richness of illustration, I have looked hastily through
the several Hists of this work as they issued from the press. The responsibility of seketing the specimens, and the preparation of brief critical notices öf: the respective writers, have devolved upon a gentleman, whose execution of the task has proved him to be in every way qualified to do it justice. My part is performed, when I have expressed my opinion that the volume is one which may be safely and profitably presented, not only by the instructor to his pupil, but by the father to his daughter, and by the mother to her son.
Had I been consulted in an earlier stage of the work, I might, perhaps, have recommended a chronological arrangement of the several authors, in order that the specimens selected might illustrate the progress of the English language, as well as the gradual development of the mind and heart of Poetry. And I should have done so on