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PREFACE.

tenderness, may soothe the soul to calmness, rouse it to honourable exertion, or fire it with virtuous indignation.

But when we consider how many of the subjects of verse are unintelligible to children, or improper for them-how few poems have been written, or how few poets could be trusted to write, to them-we shall not be surprised to find it a frequent complaint with judicious instructors, that so few pieces proper for children to commit to memory are to be found either in the entire works of poets, or in selections made from them, purposely for the use of young people. To meet the wishes of such parents and teachers, is the object of the following selection. It was thought that all the pieces ought to be short enough to be learned at one or two lessons, and good enough to be worth remembering; that their style should have nothing in it that a welleducated child might not, their matter nothing that he should not, understand, as soon as he should be at all able to feel the beauties of real poetry.

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Natural history, that popular and delightful study, justly claimed a considerable part of the work, as being at once pleasing and useful to children.

Description, of different times and seasons, of objects of nature and art, of various occupations and modes of life, opened another copious source. Moral sentiment, where it was to be found free from such theological dogmas as might be thought incomprehensible, or uninteresting, furnished a third portion. Miscellaneous scraps, laboriously gleaned from a vast number of poets, formed the remainder of the little volume.

No arrangement appeared necessary-the only point of this nature that has been studied was

-to mingle the pieces as much as possible. Some valuable poems were passed over on account of their occurrence in almost all other selections the brevity required in the pieces precluded the insertion of others but it is hoped that the smallness of the work will exculpate

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exculpate the compiler from the imputation of any sins of omission. Some liberties have unavoidably been taken, in order to make wholes of fragments.

Such is the plan of the work-of its execution the compiler can only say that it has cost much time, and much thought.

It is now trusted to a candid public, with the hope, that a performance, aspiring, from its very nature, to little applause-will not incur the hazard of much censure.

Stoke Newington,
Sept. 1801.

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