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by recollections and associations of the most hallowed nature. He can say with truth, that notwithstanding the manifold cares and anxieties and the business and bustle of a life of unusual activity, scarcely a day has passed, for a series of years, in which his mind has not recurred with painful pleasure-if there be not a contradiction in the expression-to the innocent occupations and incidents of his school-boy days. That was, indeed, a light-hearted and happy period of his existence; but it has passed away-never, never

to return.

The Author has only farther to observe, that the title he has chosen has been suggested by the variety of subjects embraced in the work, and the diversified style in which he has written.

LONDON, October, 1839.

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WALKS AND WANDERINGS.

NURSERY POETRY.

MEN's tastes are proverbially various. Mine, on the subject of poetry, will, I know, be considered singular. I cannot help that. We have no more control over our tastes than we have, to use Lord Brougham's words, "over the colour of our skin or the height of our stature." I hold that the most erroneous notions obtain in the world, respecting what constitutes true poetry. It were no difficult task to establish this position. It is admitted, on all hands, that that is the best poetry which finds its way most directly to the feelings, and which leaves the most lasting impression on the mind.

B

Whence comes it then, I ask, that Nursery Poetry is so lightly esteemed, while such works as Homer's Iliad, Virgil's Eneid, and Milton's Paradise Lost, are so generally admired and praised? Tried by the above unerring test, the latter works will not bear a moment's comparison with much of the poetry of the nursery ; for though we may have read Homer, Virgil, Milton, and many of the other writers of versification, erroneously called poets, so late perhaps as yesterday, we do not recollect, it may be, a single passage in their writings; while we have a distinct remembrance, not of a detached couplet or two, but of the entire pieces which constitute the staple of nursery poetical reading, though full half a century may have elapsed since we handled any of the Lilliputian halfpenny volumes in which such pieces have appeared. Could there, then, I ask, be a greater proof of the impression which the latter class of poetry makes on the mind of the reader, and of the little, or rather, if the phrase be not unclassical, the no impression produced by the former?

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