t we should require finish in
proportion to brevity,--that passion, colour, and originality cannot
atone for serious imperfections 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.

Chalmers' 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.

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, an