e.

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. 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 co-operating 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 of expression, are printed in this volume, it
should not be imagined that they have been excluded without much
hesitation and regret,--far less that they have been slighted.
Throughout this vast and pathetic array of Singers now silent, few
have been honoured with the name Poet, and have not possessed a skill
in words, a sympathy with beauty, a tenderness of feeling, or
seriousness in reflection, which render their works, although never
perhaps attaining that loftier and finer excellence here
required,--better worth reading than much of what fills the sc