of æsthetic congruity. The editor also flatters himself that, in classifying so many immortal productions of genius according to their own ideas and motives, rather than according to their chronology, the nativity or sex of their authors, or any other merely external order, he has exhibited the incomparable richness of our language in this department of literature quite as successfully as if he had followed the methods more frequently adopted in such compilations.

That every reader should find in these pages every one of his favorite poems, is perhaps too much to expect; but it is believed that, of those on which the unanimous verdict of the intelligent has set the seal of indisputable greatness, none of any epoch, whether of English, Scottish, Irish, or American origin, will be found wanting. With these remarks, this new edition of the work is submitted to the public, in the confident hope that, like its predecessors, it may be admitted as the familiar friend of many households, and become a daily companion both of young and old.

November, 1882.