Some of the poems now collected have already appeared in print; others are supplied by the recollection of friends. The first two are published on account of their having been composed in the author's childhood. In the poems, as well as in the prose works, will be occasionally found thoughts and expressions which have afterwards been adopted in later productions. No alteration whatever has been made from the form in which the author left the several articles, with the exception of some changes in punctuation, and the correction of one or two obvious misprints. T.F.E. London, June 1860. CONTENTS. CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNIGHT'S QUARTERLY MAGAZINE. Fragments of a Roman Tale. (June 1823.) On the Royal Society of Literature. (June 1823.) Scenes from "Athenian Revels." (January 1824.) Criticisms on the Principal Italian Writers. No. I. Dante. (January 1824.) Criticisms on the Principal Italian Writers. No. II. Petrarch. (April 1824.) Some account of the Great Lawsuit between the Parishes of St Dennis and St George in the Water. (April 1824.) A Conversation between Mr Abraham Cowley and Mr John Milton, touching the Great Civil War. (August 1824.) On the Athenian Orators. (August 1824.) A Prophetic Account of a Grand National Epic Poem, to be entitled "The Wellingtoniad," and to be Published A.D. 2824. (November 1824.) On Mitford's History of Greece. (November 1824.) MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS OF LORD MACAULAY. CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNIGHT'S QUARTERLY MAGAZINE. FRAGMENTS OF A ROMAN TALE. (June 1823.) It was an hour after noon. Ligarius was returning from the Campus Martius. He strolled through one of the streets which led to the Forum, settling his gown, and calculating the odds on the gladiators who were to fence at the approaching Saturnalia. While thus occupied, he overtook Flaminius, who, with a heavy step and a melancholy face, was sauntering in the same direction. The light-hearted young man plucked him by the sleeve. "Good-day, Flaminius. Are you to be of Catiline's party this evening?" "Not I." "Why so? Your little Tarentine girl will break her heart." "No matter. Catiline has the best cooks and the finest wine in Rome. There are charming women at his parties. But the twelve-line board and the dice-box pay for all. The Gods confound me if I did not lose two millions of sesterces last night. My villa at Tibur, and all the statues that my father the praetor brought from Ephesus, must go to the auctioneer. That is a high price, you will acknowledge, even for Phoenicopters, Chian, and Callinice." "High indeed, by Pollux." "And that is not the worst. I saw several of the leading senators this morning. Strange things are whispered in the higher political circles."