PREFACE TO THIS EDITION. No anthology in the English language has so commended and endeared itself to lovers of the best poetry as Mr. Palgrave's wellnamed "Golden Treasury." Few poems are omitted from it which readers of taste and discrimination, having regard to the principles on which the selection was made, would wish to have seen included; and the number is still smaller of the poems contained in it which the most rigorous judgment would venture to remove. Its merits in this respect are enhanced by the skill and nice perception shown in the arrangement, the result being not alone the pleasure which the reader may derive from the high and varied qualities of the separate poems, or the instruction to be gained from a comparison of the productions of different schools and epochs, but a gratification of the sense of harmony akin to that which is felt in the contemplation of an artistic masterpiece, an organic whole. The "Golden Treasury" was published in 1860, and no additions have since been made to it. It contains nothing written by poets then living, and, consequently, scarcely anything of a later date than 1830. The Fourth Book begins and ends with the epoch which owes its distinctive character to the poetry of Wordsworth more than to that of any of his great contemporaries, all of whom he both preceded and survived, and all of whom, in influence at least, he surpassed. In the interval that has since elapsed some poets of distinction have died, others have passed the period of spontaneous and vigorous production, and, though many new writers have sprung up and the poetry of the present day is probably greater in quantity and maintains a generally higher level than that of any former period, the lack of superlative excellence and of fresh impulses is too evident to allow of any doubt as to the decadence which has supervened. Within the last halfcentury the school of which Tennyson is the acknowledged head has risen to maturity and fallen into decay. It has been thought, therefore, that gleanings from the lyrical poetry of this epoch might now be fitly added to the sheaves of the "Golden Treasury," thus giving to the book that completeness the want of which has been its sole deficiency. This task has been undertaken by the writer not without many misgivings, a strong sense of its delicacy and difficulty, and a sincere wish. that it had been intrusted to more competent hands. To make any addition to a structure almost faultless in its style and proportions is always a presumptuous attempt, and in the present instance there was the further danger that the material itself might prove inferior to that of the original. No one can feel any certainty as to how much of the poetry of his own day will hereafter take rank with that which has already triumphed over chance and time, and even where there is no pretence of anticipating the verdict of posterity it would be idle to assume a concurrence of judgment on the part of contemporaries. In the case of one writer, it is true, this consensus may be said to exist. Mr. Tennyson, by common accord, holds a place among the masters of the art. His poetry is the splendid bridge that connects our epoch with the more brilliant one that immediately preceded it, for, while preserving the traditions of the past, it has voiced the aspirations and spoken with the accents of the present. Happily, too, for the purposes of this collection, his genius is essentially lyrical, and the abundance and variety of its productions left only one difficulty,-that of deciding what to reject. No such confidence could be felt in regard to a writer who has, indeed, no living rival in grasp and vigor of thought, subtlety of insight, and origi nality of method and expression, but who, far from conforming to traditions, runs athwart them all, mixing melody with discords, luxuriance of diction and imagery with colloquial abruptness and baldness, and showing in general a ruthless disregard of that perfection of form which is among the distinctive aims of art. selecting from among the poems of Mr. Browning that were otherwise suitable for this collection those which seemed to combine the most beauty with the fewest defects, the writer has in In |