FROM THE BRITISH POETS: BEING A POCKET DICTIONARY OF THEIR MOST ADMIRED PASSAGES. THE WHOLE ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED SECOND EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. EDINBURGH: PETER BROWN, 48. GEORGE STREET; AND JAMES DUNCAN, ONDON. 16 FEB 1906 Bought PREFACE. ALTHOUGH the title of this work sufficiently explains its object, we may be permitted to say, that we conceive its plan has novelty enough to exempt it from the charge of being a downright redundancy, in a market already pretty well stocked. Although the art of clipping out books, and cabbaging thoughts, has now arrived at great perfection, we yet consider a Dictionary of Detached Passages, from the inexhaustible treasury of the British Poets, as somewhat of a new clip, and that we are consequently entitled to the same privilege which every ingenious tailor enjoys on a similar occasion. We do not mean to puff, but we hereby challenge any bookseller, to shew us half as much good poetry (always excepting his own publications) in any work three times the size and three times the price; we therefore heartily recommend this Dictionary as the best pennyworth of poetry now extant. We have only further to observe, that nothing has been admitted, which has a tendency to offend decency or injure morality; and we have been fully as studious to select those pas. sages which convey some solid instruction, as those that are merely addressed to the fancy. Indeed, he must know little of the vigorous nerve and intellectual grasp of our great English poets, |