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PREFACE.
sparingly (and it is hoped judiciously) used. Their aim has rather been to give the most concise accounts, which might be consistent with clearness, of the lives of such of the Poets-Laureate as have met with biographers, and, in collecting from multifarious sources the narratives of the career of those who have not been so fortunate, to record nothing which was not in itself valuable, or interesting from its relation to literary, dramatic, or political history. Nothing would have been easier than to have imparted to the Work, by a copious parade of references, an appearance of industry and research, if not of learning.
LONDON,
JULY 21, 1853.
