recent date, in which such morceaux piquants were likely to be found. The reader, too, will discover some epigrams which are not to be met with in any printed book or miscellany. In a work of this nature, it was necessary to set some limits to the field from whence the materials of its subject matter were to be collected. Had the range been extended, and the poetic treasure-houses of the East been ransacked, doubtless many a precious gem might have been gathered in, and the volume richly illumined. Take the following, in confirmation of this remark, as specimens in translation: FROM THE ARABIC. 'When I sent you my melons, you cried out with scorn, 66 They ought to be heavy, and wrinkled, and yellow;" When I offered myself, whom those graces adorn, You flouted and called me an ugly old fellow.' FROM THE PERSIAN. On parent knees a naked new-born child Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep.' The part devoted to Monumental Epigrams in the first edition has been advisedly omitted. A few Mock Epitaphs will be found, however, interspersed amongst the pages of the present edition. With all its faults and omissions, the editor hopes that as the tastes and understandings of men vary as much as their faces, there will be found in the present volume, altered and improved as he trusts it now is, materials enough to occupy and enliven the vacant hour, and it may be, help to drive 'dull care away.' It now remains for him in concluding these remarks to say, that it has been his earnest endeavour to profit by the lavish amount of criticism with which his Collection of Epigrams was happily ushered into public acceptance, and that having rearranged them, and well weeded the work, observing to the extent of his ability a chronological arrangement of its contents, and amplifying the Notes wherever this appeared to be necessary, as well as adding a great number of fresh epigrams from a variety of sources, the editor trusts that the manifold defects which disfigured his first edition have now been atoned for. With all its faults, that edition was not suffered to encumber the publisher's shelves for any great length of time; and the reasonable in ference from this fact is that the book was wanted, the cynical barkings of some of its reviewers to the contrary notwithstanding. And here let him record his warmest acknowledgements for the many hints and suggestions which the first edition elicited from many distinguished reviewers. It is always a pleasing duty to acknowledge efforts that point to our improvement; and it would be ungrateful not to profit by them. It is now left to the decision of those critics who have been somewhat lavish of the vinegar in their ink, to say whether their strictures have been turned to a desirable account. Should such be the verdict, the sting of past invective will be forgotten in the recognition of a more extensive patronage. J. BOOTH. BROMYARD: September 1865. |