“ We love to learn from all those master minds that have shone in the literary world from the Alfred the Great of the Anglo-Saxons to the Alfred the Great of the nineteenth century, Tennyson. We all have our favourite poets. We delight in Chaucer, the father "of English poetry, and admire the Spenser that rekindled the lamp when poesy grew dim. We have pleasure in the Sackville that shed the dawn on the Elizabethan era, when arose the glorious suit, Shakspeare, the "man of a thousand souls." ”

“ It reveals to us the loveliness of Nature, brings back the freshness of youthful feeling, revives the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the springtime of our being, strengthens our interest in human nature by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feelings, knits us by new ties with universal being, and, through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life. ”

“ The glowing language and harmonious numbers of poetry exert a powerful influence over the human mind, both in elevating the thoughts and warming the feelings. This power can never be so legitimately employed as in contributing to the purposes of religion, the paramount importance of which demands that every endeavour should be bestowed to recommend it to the understanding and the heart. ”

“ It is no trifling benefit to provide a ready mirror for the young, in which they may see their own best feelings reflected, and wherein "whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are lovely," are presented to them in the most attractive form. It is no trifling benefit to send abroad strains which may assist in preparing the heart for its trials, and in supporting it under them.—Southey.
The poetry of devotion is the rarest of all poetry. ”

“ So far as we are aware no such collection as the present has as yet been made, and feeling that a Selection from the many fugitive poems that have been floating about so long in the literature of the past and present, presented in a collected form, would be a something to be desired, a something called for, and, as we shall trust, something that will prove acceptable to all lovers of poesy; we set ourselves with "fear and trembling," yet hopefully to the work, which has been to us one of pleasant research along "the hedgerows and leafy lanes of literature." ”

“ And in the air we dance on high
To the loud music of the sky.
About the moon we make a ring,
And falling stars we wanton fling,
Like squibs and rockets, for a toy;
While what frights others is our joy. ”

“ But, why publicity eschew?
Why keep "unknown to public view?"
I'll answer give.
I court not fame, it is secure,
Though many products may be poor,
I know the worthy will endure,
The good will live. ”

“ It is sad to think how few, of all the poets in the English language, have possessed or exhibited the Christian character, or had the remembrance of their names associated with the thoughts of Christ and His Cross, or the feelings to which the great theme of redemption gives rise in the bosom of a Christian. ”

“ It is no trifling good to win the ear of children with verses which foster in them the seeds of humanity and tenderness and piety; awaken their fancy, and exercise pleasurably and wholesomely their imaginative and meditative powers. ”

“ Some have a great appreciation of Gray, who is best known by his famous "Elegy," and say, with Cowper, that he is "the only poet since Shakspeare entitled to the character of the Sublime whilst others side with Johnson, and "don't think Gray a first-rate poet." Some delight in the gentle-hearted Goldsmith, and, with Bishop Percy, speak of his "elegant and enchanting style," and say with poor dying Gray, when he heard "The Deserted Village" read at Malvern, "That man is a poet," whilst others call him, as did Warton, "the first of solemn coxcombs," or "an inspired idiot," as did Horace Walpole. ”

“ An heroic spirit has been roused by a patriotic song, a hard and proud mind softened to sympathy by a powerful representation of fictitious distress. The distant wanderer, restored to his native scenes by a lively description, has blessed the poet's pen ”

“ When she becomes the handmaid of piety, she finds herself adorned and enriched (in another sense than Virgil's) with a beauty and a wealth that are not her own—
"Miraturque noros fructus, et non sua poma." ”

“ Our Ballad Literature, much of which is anonymous, is but meagrely represented in the present collection, as it was not our intention to encroach on a field already gleaned, and whose "gipsy children of song" have been presented in many collected forms. To men such as Percy, Herd, Scott, Motherwell, Buchan, Whitelaw, Roberts, and others, we owe a debt of gratitude for their labours. When we have so many volumes of Ballad Literature, and more especially "The Legendary Ballads of England and Scotland," in present series, it is not within our province to reproduce any examples from the same. ”

“ The literature of the present day is illustrated and adorned by numerous compilations from the writings of our best authors, and these are found to be of inestimable value to those who have not the leisure, means, or application to profit from the perusal of books in their original form. ”

“ And says Gray in his Life of Robert Ferguson, "Works of philosophy and science are only the study of a few superior minds, but the productions of imagination are perused by men of every description. The learned and the ignorant, the grave and the gay, the young and the old, find something attractive in the varied pages of the inspired bard. ”

“ The pious who relieve distress
Find what flows in in happiness
Is more than honour.
Pray take not my remarks amiss,
Explain them alt, and then add this:
"An ever-living author is
Our Anon, friend." ”

“ While we have thus made mention of the more prominent of our British Bards, we are in courtesy and duty bound not to overlook those who have flourished and are flourishing on the opposite shores of the Atlantic, such as Edgar Allan Poe, Sigourney, Willis, Whittier, Bryant, and their Laureate, Longfellow, who is perhaps as well known in Britain's Isles as is our own Laureate, Tennyson. ”

“ Convinced of this truth, and encouraged by the example of the inspired poets of the Old Testament and by the injunction of the Apostle Paul, to teach and admonish one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, many eminent Christians in modern times have exercised their talents in composing hymns in honour of the great events recorded in Holy Writ, or in giving a poetical dress to some of the remarkable passages with which it abounds, and thereby adapting them for storing the memory with sublime and holy thoughts, or for forming a part in the hallowed praises of the sanctuary.—Rev. ”