PREFACE.

THE present collection will be found to contain a very large proportion of the most beautiful fugitive poetry of the day; selected from a great variety of sources. It differs in the plan of its arrangement from other volumes of the same class which have preceded it; inasmuch, as every poem is scrupulously referred to the work from which it has been derived.

The delay which has occurred in the publication of the Poetical Album, (it having been printed nearly four years), has conduced to defeat more than one

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of the objects contemplated by its Editor. It was originally proposed by him, that no poem should be transplanted into its pages which had eitherbappeared, or was likely to appear among the collected works of its Author. He had also intended that a considerable portion of its contents should have been original. Since it was prepared for the press, however, most of the then unpublished articles have from time to time crept into print, and it can now merely claim to be regarded as a selection of the fugitive gems of our modern poetical literature. Some few of the pieces have also been republished by their authors; but of these the number is very insignificant. The greater part have never before appeared in any collected form, and (considering how often good poetry is overlooked in the columns of magazines and newspapers) may be pronounced, to apply Mr. Coleridge's phrase," almost as good as manuscript."

The work has been printed in a small, though clear type, with a view to compression; and will be found to contain a much larger quantity of matter, than any other collection of the kind.

Those who may look for fugitive poetry of merit, of a late date, will be pleased to remember, that nearly the whole of the book was committed to the press as

early as 1824. Why it was not published in 1826, the assignees of the estate of Messrs. Hurst, Robinson and Co., in whose possession it has remained, can best bexplain.

A second series of the Poetical Album, comprising {some of the best fugitive poetry which has appeared from 1823 to the present time, is now preparing for 1 publication, uniform with the present volume.