A long Preface to a very small volume of Poems may, at first sight, appear a superfluity, if not an impertinence: the first would imply a waste of time, for which I should be sorry; and of the last I should still more regret being wilfully culpable. But when I state that my only reason for prefixing to these few pages any preface at all, arises from a desire to plead the cause of Poetry, in the abstract, without any especial reference to my own, I hope I have stated enough to obtain a patient, if not an indulgent, perusal, from all interested in the subject: and by those, if such there be, who care little or nothing about Poetry, or Poets, I am not so unreasonable as to expect either this prefatory essay to be read, or the volume which it accompanies.

But can it be possible, in an age which is styled liberal, enlightened, and philosophical, that any, whose enlarged views and cultivated intellect have done aught justly to entitle it to such epithets, will avow themselves indifferent to Poetry, and uninterested on behalf of those who labour in their vocation as its professed votaries? I own myself unwilling to admit, unable to believe the fact. Fewer volumes of Poems may issue from the press, and Poetry may not be so fashionable as it was fifteen or twenty years ago; but I have never met with even one instance of a person of refined taste, pure and correct feeling, and a cultivated mind, to whom Poetry was an object of indifference, or by whom a genuine Poet, however humble, was regarded with apathy.

That for one volume of Poetry, published at the present time, a dozen or a score might be put forth a few years since, is no positive proof of that general distaste for Poetry, which has been, is perhaps too hastily, assumed to exist, by superficial or unreflecting observers. The very popularity which this department of literature, at no remote period, seemed to obtain for its votaries, was almost sure to be followed, and this at no distant era, by an apparent re-action.