PREFACE.

In pursuing the plan of an edition of the Standard British Poets, that should be, at the same time, so elegant as to be generally desirable, and so cheap as to be within the most moderate means, we have collected, in a single volume, the Complete Poetical Works of Collins, Gray, and Gold-. smith, with notes, memoirs, and engraved portraits of the authors.

The memoirs are believed to be sufficiently full for a work of this kind. Nothing important in the lives, or in relation to the poetical works of the authors, has been designedly omitted. The original notes of all have been given, without omission or abbreviation, and from various sources such others have been added as in the editor's judgment were desirable in the way of explanation or commentary.

In settling the text of Collins, we have carefully collated the best editions; and the biographical sketch has been chiefly prepared from the materials collected by Mr. Dyce, with occasional reference to other sources of authentic information. We have omitted, without much reluctance, the crit