imagination, variety and force of language, as well as the noblest sentiments and reflections.
The design of the present compilation is, to supply young persors, in the course of a school education, with a greater variety of English poetry than has ever yet been published in one volume, and at an expence that is comparatively trifling and inconsiderable. The poets
from whose works the extracts have been taken are, many of them, the most celebrated which this country has produced ; and others sustain no mean rank in the lists of famę. In borrowing from them, the same freedom is used as has been observed in former collections: and in many instances, where the plan would admit of it, such poems as have received the stamp of universal approbation are inserted entire.
Particular care has at the same time been taken, to admit of nothing into this collection but what is calculated for improvement, or for innocent recreation. As the bees, to borrow a comparison from St. Basil, do not dwell upon every sort of flowers, and even from those they fix upon draw only what is of service for the composition of their precious liquid, the Editor has endeavoured to follow their example: and as in gathering roses we take care to avoid the thorns, he has been careful to gather only, from the authors to whose works he has had recourse, what may be useful and entertaining, without touching any thing that is pernicious.
The first book is composed of pieces on facred and moral subjects : the second, of didactic, descriptive, narrative, and pathetic pieces.
The third book contains extracts from our best dramatic writers, and particularly Shakspeare, of whose works the last edition, by Mr. Malone, has been closely followed.
To the fourth book, which is epic and miscellaneous, the works of Spenser, Milton, and Pope have largely contributed.
The fifth book comilts principally of ludicrous poems, epigrams, songs, ballads, prologues, epilogues, and various other little pieces intended for amusement and diversion.
As such a great variety has unavoidably swelled this work to a very considerable fize, it has been thought proper, in the same manner as in the EXTRACTS in Prose, to insert a new title page nearly in the middle, that it may be bound in one, or in two volumes, according to the with of the purchasers.