tribunal of popularity. There are other Authors from whom this volume would gladly have adduced extracts, but its size was previously restricted; and such is the opulence of English poetry, that to comprehend all, many volumes must have been formed, instead of one. I feel the more privileged to speak favourably of the following Selection, from the limited part which I have borne in it; a considerable portion of the materials having been collected before the work came into my hands. The volume was commenced, and in a great measure carried on, by a literary friend, to whom the idea originally suggested itself as a personal amusement; and who persevered in it from the feeling, that the writings of the great poets of England cannot be put into the popular hand too often, in too pleasing a form, or under too accessible circumstances. |