VOICES FROM THE MOUNTAINS AND FROM THE CROWD. BY CHARLES MACKAY. = 'Che fai alma? che pensi ?' PETRARCH. BOSTON: TICK NOR, REED, AND FIELDS. M DCCC LIII. M.. со месов 82116 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 167555 THURSTON, TORRY, AND EMERSON PRINTERS. PREFACE. It is not always that prefaces are necessary to books, although custom has done its best, or worst, to make the practice of writing, if not of reading them, an imperative one. In the present case, the author feels that it would be peculiarly ungracious to depart from the established rule, and to allow this volume to be placed before the American public, without a few words of explanation and of acknowledgment. The poems in this collection are now, for the first time, brought together. They include three small volumes published in England at intervals between the years 1846 and 1851, under the titles of Voices from the Crowd," Voices from the Mountains,' and 'Town Lyrics.' They also include many fugitive pieces gathered from the periodical publications and other works, in which they originally appeared, as well as a considerable number of new poems, now first given to the world. The author was requested by his friend Mr. J. T. Fields, of the firm of Ticknor, Reed & Fields, to collect them for the American public, and the present edition is the result. This circumstance he considers himself bound to mention in the interests of Literature, to show that national and international treaties of copyright are not always necessary in the transactions of authors in England and publishers in the United States; and that kindly feeling and a high sense of |