Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, m the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts UNIVERSITY PRESS: CAMBRIDGE. PREFACE TO LALLA ROOK H. THE Poem, or Romance, of LALLA ROOKн, having now reached, I understand, its twentieth edition, a short account of the origin and progress of a work which has been hitherto so very fortunate in its course, may not be deemed, perhaps, superfluous or misplaced. It was about the year 1812 that, far more through the encouraging suggestions of friends than from any confident promptings of my own ambition, I conceived the design of writing a Poem upon some Oriental subject, and of those quarto dimensions which Scott's successful publications in that form had then rendered the regular poetical standard. A negotiation on the subject was opened with the Messrs. Longman, in the same year; but, from some causes which I cannot now recollect, led to no decisive result; nor was it till a year or two after, that any further steps were taken in the matter, - their house being the only one, it is right to add, with which, |