PREFACE [1828].

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During the five years which have elapsed since the appearance of the first portion of this Miscellany, it has so firmly established its claims to public favour, that the Editor conceives it to be scarcely necessary to detain the reader with any prefatory address, either for the purpose of bespeaking indulgence for defects, or directing attention to the merits, of this sixth volume–confident, from experience, that the one will not fail to be cheerfully granted, and the other to be duly appreciated. Without enlarging, therefore, on these topics, he submits it to the world, such as the united talents of the literary contributors, and of the artists engaged in its embellishment, have enabled him to make it.

The Editor cannot, however, forbear observing that, owing to the limits to which he is confined, and the unexpected length of some of the articles in this volume, he has been prevented from introducing many compositions intended for insertion; and he parti-

iv                                                           PREFACE.

cularly regrets this circumstance on account of disappointment that the well knows it will occasion. The liberality, indeed, with which materials have been supplied, has left him no difficulty but in the selection, and rendered that task not a little embarrassing: and though the manner in which he has performed it may, in certain cases, have excited feelings of personal pique, and even anger, still he cannot suffer that consideration to deter him from the conscientious discharge of the duty which he has undertaken. 

It is but justice to remark, that the Editor is indebted for the short poems to which the distinguished names of Campbell and Moore are affixed, and also for the Fragments by Tannahill, to kindness of literary friends, by whom they have been communicated in the persuasion that they are genuine, and that they have never yet appeared in print. With these exceptions, the present volume contains no compositions but what have been contributed by the writers themselves.

The estimation in which this Miscellany is held, both at home and abroad, might be in-

PREFACE.                                                               v

ferred from the extraordinary circulation alone which it has attained, were it not indicated by other circumstances. To say nothing of the Spanish translation, which has for some years past been provided by the Publisher in the No Me Olvides, a German version of the prose tales in the last volume has been printed at Stuttgard, as the commencement of a series. The plan of a French translation has also suggested itself; and it seems not improbable that at least partial copies of this work may, ere long, make their regular appearance in the principal languages of the civilized world.

The Publisher and Editor cannot omit this opportunity of presenting their best thanks to all the literary contributors and artists whose talents have co-operated in the production of this volume. They also acknowledge their particular obligations to John Allnutt, Esq. Of Clapham, for the gratuitous loan of two pictures in his valuable collection, The Hop Girl, and The Logicians; to Mr. T. Lupton, for the use of Martin’s exquisite drawing of The Seventh Plague; and to Mr. Freeman, of Norwich, for that of The Wedding Ring.