66 THOUGH THOU HADST MADE A GENERAL SURVEY of all the BEST OF MEN'S BEST KNOWLEDGES, THAT THOU DIDST KNOW WHATEVER WIT COULD SAY. WHICH SHOW'D THOU HADST NOT BOOKS AS MANY HAVE, HAST SET THY NOTES UNDER THY LEARNED HAND, AND MARK'D THEM WITH THAT PRINT, AS WILL SHOW HOW DANIEL. Funeral Poem upon the Death of the late Noble Earl of JOHN WOOD WARTER. Preface. UNEXPECTED and accidental circumstances have entailed upon me the publication of the lamented Southey's CoMMON-PLACE BOOK. Had it been committed to my hands in the first instance, I should probably have made an arrangement somewhat different: as it is, I carry out, as far as I am enabled to do, the arrangement which is detailed in the publisher's Prospectus. I am the Editor of the present volume, complete in itself, from p. 203; and those who are conversant in literary investigation will make allowance for such errors as may have escaped me. As far as my limited reading, and the resources of a private library, permitted, I have investigated doubtful passages, and have corrected imperfect references. Nothing but reverence for the honoured name of Southey would have induced me, with my clerical calls and studies, to have entered upon the work. The difficulty of carrying it out only, shows the wonderful stores, the accumulated learning, and the unlimited research, of the excellently single-hearted, the devout, and gifted Collector. Most truly may it be said of him, in the words of STEPHEN HAWES, in his "PASTIME OF PLEASURE," speaking of MASTER LIDGATE— "And who his bokes list to hear or see, In them he shall find Elocution With as good order as may be, Keeping full close the moralization Of the trouthe of his great intencion. Whose name is registered in remembraunce, For to endure by long continuance." The headings of such passages as are not bracketed are the lamented Collector's; for the rest (in the quaint words of old FULLER, in his ABEL REDIVIVUS)" my own meanness" is responsible. I had likewise, in pre paring the sheets for the press, added a few notes on difficult and doubtful The lines quoted on the fly leaf from Daniel, I have quoted in the new VICARAGE, WEST TARRING, SUSSEX, JOHN WOOD WARTER. |