PREFACE. THE Author, with much diffidence and distrust, sends forth to public notice these simple effusions and readings, still hoping that, however rough and unpolished they may be, there will be found in them sufficient of that which is useful, to merit some favourable consideration, and thus pave the way for a more ready reception of the "Frag.. menta" from which these Excerpta have been, perhaps with a degree of unfairness, selected. The "Fragmenta" the author will venture to publish with somewhat greater confidence, as a more complete and finished work, and as containing many points of attraction and usefulness which it has been found impossible to condense in the present little volume. There is no display of scholarship intended, but a plain and unadorned expression of heartfelt sentiment. A love of the Muses and a mind naturally fervid and energetic have constrained to this undertaking, and which, unpretending as it is, afforded a soothing cordial when "days were dark and friends were few." "Musis amicus tristitiam et metas |