It will be perceived that a great number of authors are here quoted. Exten. sive libraries, not accessible to the great mass of readers, have been ransacked, and many volumes have been read simply for the purpose of plucking some of their sweet flowers from the native wildwood in which we find them surrounded and almost obscured by weeds and thistles, and transplanting them to bloom in this little parterre. The Extracts, with few exceptions, have been arranged in chronological order, extending from the days of the earliest English poets to the present time, and embracing many passages from the poetry of America.

Perhaps an apology is due from the author for having inserted some of his own effusions in this collection. In some instances, pieces have been composed by him to illustrate a subject in a manner different from those that preceded them; in others, they have been inserted simply to fill a vacant corner; and in others, because they were already written, and it was thought they would at least do no injury, and might possibly serve to render more apparent the beauty of others, by contrast, as the brightest stars in the firmament seem more brilliant when compared with the small twinklers that surround them. Another motive for this temerity, and this is not the least just, if not the most satisfactory, of those that might be urged, may perhaps be traced to that ubiquitous principle, vanitas scriptorum, and to its offspring, which Byron exhibited to his Reviewers, when he wrote in extenuation of his offence

"Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't."

To the compilation and classification of the following Extracts much time. and labor have been devoted. Still the critical reader will doubtless find many imperfections, both in the plan and execution of the work, which can scarcely be excused by the fact of its having been prepared for the press amidst the continuous and exacting calls of professional studies. But, tedious and even perplexing as the task has often been in its details, on the whole it has proved a labor of love, to collect into one casket what were "like orient pearls at random strung ;" and, such as the book is, the compiler would fain present it to its readers as a variegated bouquet, culled from the many gardens that diversify and adorn the extensive fields of English and American Poetry.

Philadelphia, April, 1847.

J. T. W.

Contempt

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