PREFACE. WITH the confidence arising from the consciousness of honourable and successful exertion, the Proprietor and Editor of the Forget Me Not submit this volume to the public, which, they have not the least doubt, will confirm by a welcome reception the opinion they themselves entertain of its superiority to all its predecessors. How decisive soever that superiority, they should still be very loth to have this considered as the ne plus ultra of their endeavours, and to relinquish the ambition of carrying into future years that progressive improvement which has thus far marked their annual labours. A reference to the Contents and a glance at the numerous names, more or less eminent in the various walks of literature, displayed in the pages occupied by them, will at once show the great accession of contributors, and the mass of talent which has co-operated in the production of this volume. So abundant indeed was the supply of materials destined for it, that the Editor has been reluctantly compelled to exclude many communications, the authors of which will, he trusts, regard the limits imposed on him as a sufficient apology for the omission. It will likewise be obvious that this volume is much richer in poetical compositions than any of the preceding portions of the Forget Me Not; and many of those compositions are of so high an order that the Editor can assert, without fear of contradiction, that a miscellany possessing within so small a compass equal claims to public favour has rarely issued from the press. Some of these pieces are tributes of personal friendship; many more the spontaneous offerings of well-wishers, solicitous to aid by their talents in maintaining the Forget Me Not in that high station to which the public voice has elevated it. To all and each of the contributors the Editor takes this occasion to express his own and the Proprietor's warm acknowledgments. He ventures also to indulge a hope that he shall continue to be favoured with their communications; and that many other distinguished votaries of the Muses |