Excerpt from Shorter English Poems We propose also to supplement the plan already sketched by giving a section to our longer poems and another to our longer prose works. In reproducing these it will become unavoidable that parts should represent the whole; but each will be so described that whatever passages are given may be read with knowledge of their context and of their relation to the main design. These volumes will gain much by rigid avoidance of disconnected extracts. A mere book of cuttings out of finished pieces is handiwork like that of the degenerate courtiers of the days of Louis XV., who snipped single figures from engravings of the works of the best masters, and stuck them confusedly on screens. Every true work of art has its own point of unity, and blends its harmonies into a perfect round. No healthy sense of Literature can be acquired, and where any exists it can only be stupefied, by the use of elegant extracts. A fair selection from its riches ought to bring a large and happy sense of the true meaning of mu Literature home into many a room where books must needs be few, and ought to make the wit and wisdom of our country pleasant to young and old wherever English books are read. If sometimes a good work contains a word or passage that, through change of manners, could not now be read aloud in every household, I remove the stumbling-block. But wherever change is made, square brackets or notes show the extent of it. In giving pieces of our early Literature, writers before the Conquest will be represented by translation. In what was written after that time, spelling of words still current will be brought into agreement with the present usage, whenever that can be done without injury to rhyme, metre, or sense; and many notes will help the interpretation of the words now obsolete. The notes may contain any kind of information or suggestion that will quicken the enjoyment of the work they illustrate. Now and then some short pieces of old English will be left just as we receive them from our forefathers, and this will be done at intervals frequent enough to make them serviceable to those who care to get what help they can to a closer knowledge of our language. The best use of the study of language is to develop our perception of the finer charms of thought, and if it should be the good fortune of this Library to be well thumbed in many homes, the quiet hours will come when one and another reader will be disposed to get all possible help from notes that were at first passed over. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.