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PREFACE.

SHORTLY after the inception of my project of a DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS, I determined, if life and health were continued, to supplement that work by a copious selection of QUOTATIONS from some of the works of the authors recorded in that register. The POETICAL QUOTATIONS are now offered to the public; and are to be followed by PROSE QUOTATIONS: the three DICTIONARIES -AUTHORS, POETRY, PROSE-representing and partly constituting a literature marvellous for its extent, variety, and value. The advantages of well-arranged and easily-consulted extracts from the best writings of the best authors are too obvious to need rehearsal; and the alphabetical distribution of the names of authors, and copious Indexes of Authors, Subjects, and First Lines, carry with them their own recommendation. A few words may be devoted to several of the most prominent subjects:

I. "AUTHORS."-Opinions and criticisms upon 116 writers, by 56 authors, are quoted. The writers commented upon are: Addison, Ariosto, Aristotle, Bacon, Berkeley, Boileau, Boyle, Broome, Budgell, Burgess, Burnet, Burns, Cartesius, Cato, Cervantes, Chatterton, Chaucer, Cibber, Cicero, Coleridge, Condorcet, Congreve, Corneille, Cowley, Crabbe, Craggs, Crashaw, Dante, Defoe, Denham, Dennis, Dionysius, Dryden, Duck, D'Urfey, Epictetus, Erasmus, Etherege, Eusden, Evans, Flecknoe, Fletcher, Franklin, Galileo, Gay, Granville, Harvey, Heylin, Hoadly, Hobbes, Homer, Horace, Jonson, Knags, Lamb, Lee, Locke, Longinus, Lopez, Lucan, Mævius, Martial, Martyn, Milbourn, Milton, Molière, Moore, More, Newcastle, Newton, Ogilby, Ovid, Paine, Parnell, Petrarch, Pindar, Plato, Plutarch, Pope, Quarles, Rabelais, Racine, Raleigh, Ralph, Rochefoucauld, Roscommon, Rousseau, Rowe, SaintAndré, Sappho, Scarlatti, Scott, Settle, Shadwell, Shakspeare, Sheridan, Short, Sidney, Skelton, Sloane, Socrates, Solon, Spenser, Swift, Theobald, Theocritus, Thomson, Vida, Virgil, Voiture, Waller, Walton, Withers, Wycherly, Young, and Zoilus. The commentators are: Addison, Akenside, Basse, Blackmore, Browning, Brydges, Bulwer, Byron, Campbell, Canning, Coleridge, Collins, Cowley, Cowper, Creech, Denham, Dryden, Elliott, Fenton, Gay, Granville, Hall, Harte, Henley, Hill, Holmes, Horace, Johnson, Jonson, Lamb, Lyttelton, Milton, Moore, Parnell, Philips, Pope, Prior, Raleigh, Roscommon, Sandys, Savage, Shakspeare, Sheffield, Shelley, Shenstone, Sydney Smith, Southey, Spenser, Swift, Thomson, Tickell, Waller, Wolcott, Wordsworth, and Young.

(xiii)

These annotations are fitly supplemented by the articles "AUTHORSHIP" and "CRITICISM" (under which last will be found 170 quotations).

II. "MORNING."-One of the finest compositions in the writings of the late Daniel Webster is a letter on the morning, written to Mrs. J. W. Paige, and dated at Richmond, April 29, five o'clock A.M., 1847. (See Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, 1857, ii. 240.) "Beautiful descriptions of the 'morning' abound in all languages. . . . Milton has fine descriptions of morning, but not so many as Shakespeare, from whose writings pages of the most beautiful images, all founded on the glory of the morning, might be filled," etc. Under this title 152 extracts, from 38 authors, will be found.

III. "RIVERS."-In his very interesting Recollections of Past Life (1872, chapter ii.), Sir Henry Holland remarks, "Much more I could say of rivers, as giving to travel the greatest charm of landscape, while affording lessons in geology and physical geography invaluable to science. Even the simple brook, followed step by step to its course, illustrates, in the windings of its channel, its depths and deposits, and the sections which its banks disclose, many of the grandest phenomena and conclusions of geology. In the poetry of every age the flow of river-waters has been a favourite theme,-one symbol of the life and destinies of man." The reader will find 94 quotations under this head.

291, and

"BIRDS" are celebrated in 260 passages by 45 authors; "LAW" contains 194, "LOVE" 565, "POLITICS" 157, "SLEEP" 242, “WOMAN "YOUTH" 227 quotations. In the whole (as stated on the title-page) 435 subjects are illustrated, by 550 authors, in 13,600 quotations, which may be read in course, or consulted separately, as occasion serves.

PHILADELPHIA, February 8, 1873.

S. AUSTIN Allibone.

POETICAL QUOTATIONS.

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