TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. The oe ligature (one occurrence) has been replaced by 'oe'. Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. More detail can be found at the end of the book. THE FOLLOWING PAGES, ORIGINALLY INTENDED FOR THEIR AMUSEMENT, ARE DEDICATED TO MY CHILDREN. ORACLES FROM THE POETS. I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips let no dog bark. _Merchant of Venice._ ORACLES FROM THE POETS: A FANCIFUL DIVERSION FOR THE DRAWING-ROOM. BY CAROLINE GILMAN. The enthusiast Sybil there divinely taught, Writes on loose foliage inspiration's thought. She sings the fates, and in her frantic fits The notes and names inscribed to leaves commits. _Dryden's and Symmon's Virgil._ _Macbeth._ I conjure you, by that which you profess, (Howe'er you come to know it,) answer me. _First Witch._ Speak. _Second Witch._ Demand. _Third Witch._ We'll answer. NEW YORK: JOHN WILEY (OLD STAND OF "WILEY AND PUTNAM"), 161 BROADWAY: AND PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 1848. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, BY WILEY & PUTNAM. In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. Stereotyped by RICHARD C. VALENTINE, 45 Gold-street, New York. PREFACE. I was led to arrange "THE ORACLES FROM THE POETS," by observing the vivid interest taken by persons of all ages in a very common-place Fortune-Teller in the hands of a young girl. It occurred to me that I might avail myself of this love of the mysterious, for the intellectual enjoyment of my family circle. Instead, however, of the pastime of a few days, it has been the work of every leisure moment for six months. The first movement was the pebble thrown into the stream; circle after circle formed, until I found, with old Thomas Heywood, "My pen was dipt As well in opening each hid manuscript, As tracts more vulgar, whether read or sung In our domestic or more foreign tongue." How rich these six months have been in the purest and highest enjoyment, I will not stop to say; but to be allowed to float in such an atmosphere, buoyed up with the sweetest sympathies of friends, may be conceived to be no common happiness. And now, with the hope of communicating a portion of this pleasure more extensively, I yield this volume up as a public offering, for the advancement of those rational social enjoyments which seem to belong to the moral movement of the age.