Poems and letters

Preface

In compiling the present little volume^ it has been the wish of the Editor in some measure to carryout her dearest Father's favourite but unfulfilled design of an autobiography. It is with reference to this that both the Poems and Letters have been selected ; and she begs to return her grateful thanks to the Publishers of his respective volumes, Messrs. Hatchard, Parker, Baldwin, Holdsworth, and Boys, for the readiness with which they have granted her the freedom of selecting what seemed most desirable ;— to Mr. Orr, for the kindness which has permitted her to avail herself of his purchased right in some of the Poems ; — and to Messrs. Virtue, for the liberality with which she has been allowed to glean so largely from his last published volume, " The Household Verses."* It has been

* It is due to the Publishers of this last-named work to state, that the following Poems from its pages will be found in the present volume : — ^^Sonnet to a Friend never yet seen, but corresponded

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deemed allowable to give the Poems that general revision which they might have undergone from their Author^ had he lived to re-publish them ; a need of revision and condensation being evident to the Editor herself, and to some others, of whose advice and assistance she has not hesitated to avail herself.

The Ivy, — The Valley of Fern^ — Stanzas written in the Grounds of Martin Cole, — and some others, are given quite unaltered ; being already so well known and liked by many persons in their original shape. In some instances the moral has been retrenched from the story, or the reflections from the scene that originated them, when those reflections and moral were obvious enough to suggest themselves, or were repeated in some better form elsewhere ; as in the case of Great Bealings Churchyard, Bethesda, &c.

with for above twenty years. To the Memory of Elizabeth Hodgkin. Selborne, a Sonnet. The Shunammite Woman. Memorial of John Scott. To the B. B. Schooner, on seeing her sail down the Deben for Liverpool. Sonnet to the Sister of an old Schoolfellow. Triplets for Truth's Sake. A Thought. Verses suggested by a very curious Old Room at the Tankard, Ipswich. Faith, Hope, and Charity. Sonnets written at Burstal. John Evelyn. Orford Castle. The Departed. On a Drawing of Norwich Market-place, by Cotman, taken in 1807. To the Deben. To a very young Housewife.

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The great bulk of the JPoems is religious ; but there are not wanting those of a lighter character^ which wiU be found to be the wholesome relaxation of a pure, good, and essentially religious mind. These may succeed each other as gracefully and beneficently as April sunshine and showers over the meadow. So indeed such moods followed in his own mind, and were so revealed in his domestic intercourse.

The Letters are none of them of a very distant date ; few early ones having been preserved, and where preserved, possessing less interest than those of a later date. They have been chosen, so far as it was possible, from various correspondents, and are arranged, for brevity's sake, not in exact chronological order as regards all the correspondents, but only as regards each. They are not connected by Memoir, because few of them are found to relate to the passing events of life, but rather contain recollections of that which is already past ; or tell, in his own way, what he thought and felt on subjects of the greatest interest to him. They are of various moods, on various subjects, but, like the Poems, at one with each other in this, they always reveal a heart which, though often playful and humorous, like Wordsworth's good old Matthew ;

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like him, too, could never once be said to "go astray."

The Editor owes especial thanks to such of her dearest Father's correspondents, who, by kindly placing his letters at her disposal, have in great measure supplied to her the material by which she has been enabled to lay before her readers his own opinions in his own words.

That feeling which has made the Editor entirely unequal to write that part of the volume more directly biographical keeps her silent upon it here. She has intrusted it to one who knew her Father well, and on whom she can rely for an impartial relation of his history. It has been more amply detailed than it would have been for the public only, at her request, in order to satisfy many subscribers to whom the account of his life was likely to be especially interesting.

LUCY BARTON.

Woodhridge, August I4thj 1849.