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PREFACE.

IT was the author's desire in the following pages to convey some idea of the merits of our earlier poets, and to direct attention to their works without entering into a formal critical analysis, which would have been too diffuse, and not sufficiently popular for a general lecture.

That such a work as the present must be imperfect the author is well aware- -the subject is copious, and there is much that he has been obliged to pass over with a hasty allusion, or altogether in silence. The ballads and fugitive verses familiarized to the public in the admirable collections of Percy and Ellis, and the poetry of many anonymous authors have sufficient claims for a separate notice, which would have been appended to the present volume, did it not already exceed the limits which the author proposed, and his treatment of the subject warrants.

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