twenty years' time I should, I presume, be able to do this book better than it is now done; but in the meantime I venture to present it to the public, done as well as I at present know how, to mark, as it were, a milestone upon the way yet to be travelled. One other previous collector I must mention, Frederick Locker Lampson, whose Lyra Elegantiarum contains much good eighteenth-century poetry of the lighter kind; and one scholar, the late W. P. Courtney, whose research into the lives of the minor poets of the period, especially his book (privately printed, alas !) on the contributors to Dodsley's Miscellany, is of inestimable value to students. To the writings, also, of the late Austin Dobson, of Mr. Saintsbury, of Mr. Courthope, and of Mr. Gosse-whose History of Eighteenth Century Literature is the best short view of the subject which I know-I must express my gratitude. And to Mr. Gosse, and to Mr. J. C. Squire, personally, I owe my very best thanks for many most valuable suggestions, for much encouragement in my task, and for going through my manuscript, at various stages in its career, for me. Mr. Edmund Blunden I must also thank for several suggestions. To Mr. F. L. Clarke, late bursar's clerk of King's College, Cambridge, and to various contributors to Notes and Queries, particularly Mr. Russell Markland, my thanks are also due for supplying me with information. The only copyright poem in this book is Prior's Jinny the Just, which is included by kind permission of the Marquess of Bath and of the Cambridge University Press. A paragraph must be added about punctuation and spelling. As to the former I have pleased myself, and put whatever punctuation seemed to me to be best, and in the matter of inverted commas I have not adopted any uniform system, but have used them, or omitted them, as appeared to suit each individual poem. The spelling I have modernised, but I have used the apostrophe in past participles, except when the final -ed is to be sounded; in verbs ending in -ie or -y, however, I have preferred to write died, cried, fancied and married, rather than dy'd, cry'd, fancy'd and marry'd. With that I leave to the critics and to the public what I dare to hope that they will find a readable book, and a collection of fine poetry. This anthology will, if only part of its compiler's hopes are realised, lead to a reassessment of the value of the poetry of the eighteenth century, not so much as it was written by the greatest poets (for with many people's estimate of Gray, for instance, I should not be inclined to quarrel), but by the minor writers. This, however, is not now for me to decide, it rests with my readers, who may, I trust, find the poems that are here offered to them as beautiful as they seem, after much study, to myself. |