PREFACE.
The following pages contain part of an album into which the writer was accustomed, some years since, to copy any passage, remarkable for its beauty or for the truth which it expressed, whether in prose or verse, and without reference to the period in which the author lived. From those gleanings this little volume has been formed, with no other attention to arrangement than to prevent the too frequent occurrence of the same writer's productions, and to intersperse the poetry with prose.
Although nothing could be less intended than to give these extracts a didactic form, they will not only be found wholly free from a line to which the most rigid moralist can object; but many of them inculcate sentiments of the purest piety and the strictest virtue, clothed in the most beautiful language. Others were selected for the admirable rules which they prescribe for human conduct, and some few for their literary excellence alone.
In a considerable degree, these sheets are specimens of the best English authors of all periods; since, selections have been made from nearly one hundred of the most distinguished writers, among whom are Bacon, Milton,
