ΤΟ

HER MOST SACRED MAJESTY,

VICTORIA,

QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND,

ETC. ETC. ETC.

THIS SELECTION FROM

THE WORKS OF HER ILLUSTRIOUS SUBJECT

IS DEDICATED IN THE HOPE THAT

HER MAJESTY, BOTH AS A QUEEN AND A MOTHER,

WILL APPROVE OF AND REJOICE IN

ANYTHING THAT TENDS TO FAMILIARISE

THE YOUTH OF THE REALM

WITH SUCH IMAGES OF PURITY AND BEAUTY,

AND SUCH

LESSONS OF TRUTH AND LOYALTY,

AS ARE HEREIN CONTAINED.

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HE following selection from the poems of Wordsworth has been made under an impression that it is now high time to have recourse to his poetry as one of our direct instruments of education. His works are, by this time, obviously too voluminous to be accessible to young people generally; nor are all of them calculated for either childhood or youth,—many which at first sight seem the most connected with those periods being, in fact, the least addressed to such as are living in them; while those which are mainly subjective will, on all hands, be acknowledged to be fit only for the grown-up reader. But further, there is much in Wordsworth which is dear to those whose thoughts he has moulded, but which would be, at the best, a dead letter to any who have never yet been influenced by him, and who, if presented with such of his writings, would

most probably be repelled from his poetry altogether.

In the following selection, therefore, the compiler's choice has fallen, as far as possible, on such poems as contain the broader features of Wordsworth's style, as possess a beauty which must reveal itself to all who have the capacity of perceiving beauty, and as have, by this time, taken their place among the classics of the English tongue. That Ruth, and Laodamia, and The Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, and all the poems which one instinctively classes with these, satisfy such conditions, will not be denied. Where there is an awakening taste for poetry in the young, it will always fasten with peculiar interest on that of their own age; and therefore it is well to be beforehand with such taste in this respect, to direct it rightly, to point out where the purest and the highest beauty is to be found in our contemporary literature, and, when discovered, to direct the youthful mind to its distinctive beauty and value. To say that Wordsworth, beyond any other writer, may minister to a sense of the beauty of the world,