Excerpt from The Sea's Anthology: From the Earliest Times Down to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century Again, how far may a compiler cut a piece to suit his needs? This, too, is a matter that requires wisdom for its proper settlement; and, goodness knows, wisdom is rare amongst us - hence I expect to be condemned, without trial, on my own written evidence. Cutting is a habit with some persons, with others it is a dis cretion; and all I can say is that I have tried to be discreet. As a cry of peccavi and an argument for the defendant, take Shelley's thrice beautiful Arethusa I needed only what it contains relative to the sea and enough of the previous lines to make the story intel ligible. Shall I be shrived for this cardinal offence? The same applies to Coleridge's haunting fantasy, deathless in Spite of its impossible navigation. And again to Gervase Markham's long-winded and moralis ing account of the defeat Of the Armada. 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.