LONDON:

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

ΤΟ

ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ.

THIS Book, though it should travel far and wide
As ever unripe Author's quick conceit

Could feign his page dispers'd, should nowhere meet

A friendlier censor than by Greta's side,

A warmer welcome than at Skiddaw's feet.

Unhappily infrequent in the land

Is now the sage seclusion, the retreat
Sacred to letters: but let this command
Fitting acknowledgment,-that time and tide

Saw never yet embellished with more grace
Outward and inward, with more charms allied,

With honours more attended, man or place, Than where by Greta's silver current sweet Learning still keeps one calm sequestered seat.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE THIRD EDITION.

IN the advertisement to the second edition of this work, published three months after the first, it was stated that the one differed from the other only in one or two trifling insertions, in the correction of some faults which had been pointed out in periodical publications, and in the alteration of a few lines here and there, made for the most part with a view to consolidate the rhythm. In the years which have since elapsed there has been ample time for revision, and though some of the more material defects, being what may be called structural, are so incorporated with the whole as to be beyond the reach of correction;

yet the Author trusts that much improvement has been effected by the removal of blemishes that lay on the surface. One or two short scenes have been introduced also where they seemed to be wanted for purposes either of connection or separation.

LONDON, JANUARY, 1844.