I have nowhere given extracts from larger poems, but only poems which may be regarded as complete in themselves. It is true that I have sometimes made room for such as, through their length, or through some other cause, must otherwise have been shut out, by omissions; but only where I believed these omissions to be real gains; and I do not think I have anywhere done this without giving warning to the reader. There are, no doubt, certain inconveniences which attend a resolution only to give entire poems and not extracts; and this the chief one--that the space allotted to different poets cannot in all or nearly all instances represent or correspond to their several importance. Some poets have thrown all or well nigh all their poetic faculty into the composition of one or two great poems; and have very seldom indeed allowed themselves in briefer excursions into the land of song. Others on the contrary, of not higher, or it may be not nearly so high, a gift, have put a large part of their strength into these occasional poems, and will therefore yield for a volume like the present infinitely more than their more illustrious compeers. Under the action of this rule, and dramatic poetry being of necessity excluded, there is nothing of Shakespeare’s to choose from but his Sonnets and his Songs--these certainly being in themselves much, but still little when compared with what is passed by. Again, one who does not believe in _Alexander’s Feast_, and still less in the _Ode on the Death of Mrs. Killigrew_, finds it hard, indeed impossible, to deal anything approaching to justice to Dryden, or by specimens which are at his command to afford any true representation of the range of his powers or the eminence of his place in English literature. It is the same and nearly to the same extent with Pope; while others, like Gray and Campbell, get justice and more than justice; though, yielding what they do, one does not grudge this to them in the least. The inconvenience would certainly be a grave one, if the volume presented itself as primarily a Manual of English Poetry, or an assistance to the study of the history of this; but having quite another as its primary object, it is one which may very well be borne, while the advantages of such a rule of selection are undoubted.