EDITOR'S PREFACE FROM the beginnings of civilisation the poets have been the best of educators; and the need for the kind of education which poetry alone can give does not grow less as knowledge advances and the claims of other studies threaten more and more to absorb attention. No apology is required, therefore, for turning to school use the best collection that has been made, or is likely to be made, of the English and Scottish lyric poetry of the eighteenth century. Some defence, however, may be looked for from the commentator who has the presumption to seem to stand between the poets and their reader. Perhaps he would be thought to quibble if he met the charge with a denial of the fact, and urged that, in literal truth, he comes in these pages after the poets and not before them. Such is, indeed, the place he wishes to occupy: to be read after the poems, and in no case until the poem commented upon has been read with care and intelligence. If this defence be insufficient, he can only repeat what he has said already in the similar edition of Book Fourth; that he does, here in his Preface, honestly "warn the student that the text is the one thing of importance, and the value of the notes wholly subsidiary; that he urges him to read the poems first, and the notes (if at all) afterwards, and the poems again many times; and that, finally, he has tried, even in writing notes, to bear in mind the principle that the poets are the best interpreters of themselves and of each other." The advice of one or two critics of the edition of Book Fourth, that the notes should be kept at one level, he has not felt himself able to follow. He has had in view the requirements of more than one class of reader; and he holds that a commentary is not intended, any more than a dictionary, to be read through by one person. The Editor has again to thank Mr. R. H. Inglis Palgrave, acting in the absence from England of Mr. Frank Palgrave, for permission to annotate this volume. Further work upon the Golden Treasury leads him to value this privilege more highly than ever. In the preface to Book Fourth he quoted the testimony to Mr. F. T. Palgrave's selection given by a recent anthologist, Mr. Quiller-Couch. He may be permitted this time to cite the equally emphatic words in which Professor Courthope, in his inaugural lecture at Oxford, referred to the Golden Treasury as "a work of Greek beauty, which will always remain as a monument of the critical refinement and the large sympathy of my predecessor, Francis Palgrave.' Mr. Inglis Palgrave has, as in the case of Book Fourth, added to his kindness by reading the notes and making suggestions; and the Editor has again to thank his friend and colleague, Mr. S. T. Irwin, for the like favour. Two other friends, Professor Rowley and Mr. W. T. Arnold, have responded with their unfailing kindness to requests for enlightenment on particular points. In the annotation of Gray much help has been obtained from Mr. Tovey's scholarly edition and from Dr. Bradshaw's volume in this series. For the Index of Words the Editor is indebted to his wife. J. H. FOWLER. CLIFTON COLLEGE, |