andid reader to pronounce.

In conclusion, we would express a hope that we shall not inaptly
commence a series of OXFORD ENGLISH CLASSICS with the works of one whose
writings have so enlarged and embellished the science of moral evidence,
which has long constituted a characteristic feature in the literary
discipline of this university. The science of mind and its progress, as
recorded by history, or unfolded by biography, was Johnson's favourite
study, and is still the main object of pursuit in the place whose system
and institutions he so warmly praised, and to which he ever professed
himself so deeply indebted. If the terseness of attic simplicity has
been desiderated by some in the pages of Johnson, they undeniably
display the depth of thought, the weight of argument, the insight into
mind and morals, which are to be found in their native dignity only in
the compositions of those older writers with whose spirit he was so
richly imbued. In this place, then, where those models which Johnson
admired and imitated are still upheld as the only sure guides to sound
learning, his writings can never be laid aside unread and neglected.

OXFORD, JUNE 23, 1825.

[a] See a remark on this subject made by Johnson, with reference to the
Spectator, and all other works of the same class, which describe
manners. Boswell, ii. 218, and Prefatory Notice to Rambler, vol. i.

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

ESSAY on the Life and Genius of Dr. Johnson

POEMS.

London

The Vanity of Human Wishes

Prologue, spoken by Mr. Garrick, at the opening of the theatre-royal,
Drury lane

Prefatory Notice to the tragedy of Irene

Prologue

Irene

Epilogue, by sir William Yonge

Prologue to the masque of Comus

Prologue to the comedy of the Good-natured Man

Prologue to the comedy of a Word to the Wise

Spring

Midsummer

Autumn

Winter

The Winter's Walk

To Miss ****, on her giving the author a gold and silk network purse, of
her own weaving

To Miss ****, on her playing upon the harpsichord, in a room hung with
flower-pieces of her own painting

Evening; an ode

To the same

To a friend

Stella in mourning

To Stella

Verses, written at the request of a gentleman, to whom a lady had given
a sprig of myrtle

To lady Firebrace, at Bury assizes

To Lyce, an elderly lady

On the death of Mr. Robert Levet

Epitaph on Claude Phillips

Epitaphium in Thomam Hanmer, baronettum

Paraphrase of the above,