PREFACE. IN making these selections for a birthday book, it has been my aim to use the material in such a way as would be approved by the author; and I have made a special effort to obtain the birthdays of those persons to whom lines have been addressed. Not forgetting that this poet, so dear to the people, has drawn around him "The battered mail of Freedom's cause," I have remembered the names of Quincy, Palfrey, Sewall, May, Arago, Monod, and others, friends of humanity. Nor have I failed to include, as seemed fitting, some prominent Quakers: as Gurney, Fry, Grimké, Mott, Barton, and Bene zet. Many interesting and valuable names have been omitted, either from want of space or because the corresponding birthdays could not readily be found. I offer no apology for giving many names of not world-wide renown, but which, if examples of moral heroism and absolute self-sacrifice are worth anything to the children of to-day, might well be household words, reminding us all that |