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John Hatchard and Son, Piccadilly;

WHITTAKER & CO. AVE-MARIA LANE; SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO.
STATIONERS' COURT; TALBOYS, OXFORD; DEIGHTON,
CAMBRIDGE; OLIVER & BOYD, EDINBURGH;

CUMMING, DUBLIN;

AND T. WARDLE, PHILADELPHIA.

MDCCCXXXVI.

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

Then why

not more

FAVOURABLY as the first volume of the "Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century" has been received, the Editor, though confident that the volume now presented to his readers is of equal and more various excellence, anticipates, nevertheless, one probable objection, viz. that too great a proportion of the precious products of the sacred muse of Britain, here brought together, are of an exclusively Christian-perhaps, in the majority of instances, of a strictly spiritual character. This objection he does not expect to hear from the reader whose piety is the predominant quality of his mind-the more exactly the selection corresponds with the promise of the title, and with the general character of the series of which it forms a part, so much the more decidedly will it secure his approbation; he does not expect to hear it from that less numerous class, who have reflected upon the true end of the divine gift of song, and who regard with sincere veneration whatever is worthy of the high endowments of the true poet, in our elder literature-he feels assured,

of Croskey

429728

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