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SPECIMENS

OF THE

Early English Poets.

LONDON, PRINTED FOR EDWARDS, PALL-MALL.

1790.

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PREFACE.

THE poetical mifcellany now offered to the

public was originally intended to comprize, within the compass of one volume, all the moft beautiful small poems which had been published in this country during the fixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and it was conceived that, by claffing the several authors under the reigns in which they flourished, the collection would unite the advantages of a poetical common-place book with those of a history of English poetry. Perhaps these purposes may be in fome measure answered even by the present imperfect collection; but the completion of the publisher's plan has been prevented by the difficulty of procuring a fufficient stock of materials.

THE regularity and harmony of style, and the minute attention to the artifice of composition which were introduced by the au

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