tion of cultured Englishmen with whom they are likely to come in contact, and which it would argue a strange narrow-mindedness to suppose are not well fitted to do for them what they have done for us.

Such considerations led to the suggestion that our students should be asked to master a collection which has found a place in every English home where the poets are known and loved: and the desire to do something to make plain for them the way into this Golden Treasury' has prompted this little book. It is hoped that the poems have been handled with all reverence: and the book will have served its purpose if it help in some small measure to fit the student to enjoy for the future without its assistance songs that can be really known only when they go from the heart to the heart, and if it should haply induce him to draw for himself at those living wells whose power and purity may be gauged by what is offered from them here.

My cordial thanks are due to Messrs. Macmillan and Co. and to Mr. Palgrave for the ready permission they have extended to me to reprint the text of the 'Golden Treasury': and to my friend and colleague Mr. W. Wordsworth for the right to make what use I thought fit of the copyright matter in the Trustee's Edition of his illustrious grandfather's works. *

The merits of Mr. Palgrave's collection need no further witness: but Mr. Palgrave may derive some gratification from another individual testimony, that his book has been found, as he hoped it would,— 'a lifelong fountain of innocent and exalted pleasure; a source of animation to friends when they meet; and able to sweeten solitude itself with best society, with the companionship of the wise and the good, with the beauty which the eye cannot see, and the music only heard in silence.'

At any rate to say so is to discharge a debt.

November, 1880.

* Mr. Palgrave's own notes are in this edition marked F. T. P.

NOTE TO SECOND EDITION

A few modifications of the text and notes of the first edition of the 'Golden Treasury' have been communicated to me by Mr. Palgrave (Nov. 1881) for this edition. My own notes have been revised, some errors corrected, and a few notes added. I have to thank Mr. Palgrave, Mr. R. T. H. Griffith, Mr. W. E. Hart, Mr. H. F. Littledale, and a number of other friends, for suggestions made to me privately and they, as well as my public critics, will, it is hoped, find that an effort has been made to render the book more worthy of the gratifying reception it has met with. I could have wished that more time had been available for a thorough revision, but the selection of the work as a text-book for its higher examinations by the University of Calcutta has rendered the early production of a Second Edition imperative.

March, 1882.

PREFACE TO THE GOLDEN TREASURY

THIS little Collection differs, it is believed, from others in the attempt made to include in it all the best original Lyrical pieces and Songs in our language, by writers not living,—and none beside the best. Many familiar verses will hence be met with; many also which should be familiar: the Editor will regard as his fittest readers those who love Poetry so well that he can offer them nothing not already known and valued.

The Editor is acquainted with no strict and exhaustive definition of Lyrical Poetry; but he has found the task of practical decision increase in clearness and in facility as he advanced with the work, whilst keeping in view a few simple principles. Lyrical has been here held essentially to imply that each Poem shall turn on some single thought, feeling, or situation. In accordance with this, narrative, descriptive, and didactic poems,-unless accompanied by rapidity of movement, brevity, and the colouring of human passion,-have been excluded. Humorous poetry, except in the very unfrequent instances where a truly poetical tone pervades the whole, with what is strictly personal, occasional, and religious, has been considered foreign to the idea of the book. Blank verse and the ten-syllable couplet, with all pieces markedly dramatic, have been rejected as alien from what is commonly understood by Song, and rarely conforming to Lyrical conditions in treatment. But it is not anticipated, nor is it possible, that all readers shall think the line accurately drawn. Some poems, as Gray's Elegy, the Allegro and Penseroso, Wordsworth's Ruth, or Campbell's Lord Ullin, might be claimed with perhaps equal justice for a narrative or descriptive selection: whilst with reference especially to Ballads and Sonnets, the Editor can only state that he has taken his utmost pains to decide without caprice or partiality.

This also is all he can plead in regard to a point even more liable to question; what degree of merit should give rank among the Best. That a Poem shall be worthy of the writer's genius,—that it shall reach

a perfection commensurate with its aim,—that we should require finish in proportion to brevity,--that passion, colour, and originality cannot atone for serious imperfection in clearness, unity, or truth,—that a few good lines do not make a good poem,-that popular estimate is serviceable as a guidepost more than as a compass, above all, that Excellence should be looked for rather in the Whole than in the Parts, such and other such canons have been always steadily regarded. He may however add that the pieces chosen, and a far larger number rejected, have been carefully and repeatedly considered; and that he has been aided throughout by two friends of independent and exercised judgment, besides the distinguished person addressed in the Dedication. It is hoped that by this procedure the volume has been freed from that one-sidedness which must beset individual decisions :-but for the final choice the Editor is alone responsible.

It would obviously have been invidious to apply the standard aimed at in this Collection to the Living. Nor, even in the cases where this might be done without offence, does it appear wise to attempt to anticipate the verdict of the Future on our contemporaries. Should the book last, poems by Tennyson, Bryant, Clare, Lowell, and others, will no doubt claim and obtain their place among the best. But the Editor trusts that this will be effected by other hands, and in days far distant.

Chalmer's vast collection, with the whole works of all accessible poets not contained in it, and the best Anthologies of different periods, have been twice systematically read through: and it is hence improbable that any omissions which may be regretted are due to oversight. The poems are printed entire, except in a very few instances (specified in the notes) where a stanza has been omitted. The omissions have been risked only when the piece could be thus brought to a closer lyrical unity: and, as essentially opposed to this unity, extracts obviously such, are excluded. In regard to the text, the purpose of the book has appeared to justify the choice of the most poetical version, wherever more than one exists and much labour has been given to present each poem, in disposition, spelling, and punctuation, to the greatest advantage.

X

PREFACE TO THE GOLDEN TREASURY

For the permission under which the copyright pieces are inserted, thanks are due to the respective Proprietors, without whose liberal concurrence the scheme of the collection would have been defeated.

In the arrangement, the most poetically-effective order has been attempted. The English mind has passed through phases of thought and cultivation so various and so opposed during these three centuries of Poetry, that a rapid passage between Old and New, like rapid alteration of the eye's focus in looking at the landscape, will always be wearisome and hurtful to the sense of Beauty. The poems have been therefore distributed into Books corresponding, I. to the ninety years closing about 1616, II. thence to 1700, III. to 1800, IV. to the half century just ended. Or, looking at the Poets who more or less give each portion its distinctive character, they might be called the Books of Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, and Wordsworth. The volume, in this respect, so far as the limitations of its range allow, accurately reflects the natural growth and evolution of our Poetry. A rigidly chronological sequence, however, rather fits a collection aiming at instruction than at pleasure, and the Wisdom which comes through Pleasure :—within each book the pieces have therefore been arranged in gradations of feeling or subject. The development of the symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven has been here thought of as a model, and nothing placed without careful consideration. And it is hoped that the contents of this Anthology will thus be found to present a certain unity, 'as episodes,' in the noble language of Shelley, 'to that great Poem which all poets, like the coöperating thoughts of one great mind, have built up since the beginning of the world.'

As he closes his long survey, the Editor trusts he may add without egotism, that he has found the vague general verdict of popular Fame more just than those have thought, who, with too severe a criticism, would confine judgments on Poetry to 'the selected few of many generations.' Not many appear to have gained reputation without some gift or performance that, in due degree, deserved it : and if no verses by certain writers who show less strength than sweetness, or more thought than mastery in expression, are printed in this volume, it should not be imagined that they have been excluded with