PREFACE. WORKS of classical biography, interspersed with quotation, in the manner of "Crusius's Roman Poets," are not uncommon. In the present work criticism and biography are subordinate to the main design of illustrating by examples the genius of the respective writers. The collections embodied with the British Poets, under the title of "The British Translators," cannot be regarded as giving a complete view of ancient poetry. Many authors that have been translated are overlooked, and the names of several do not appear, for the simple reason that they have not been translated. The plan of a chronological series of specimens brings the whole body of the Greek and Latin poets in systematic review before the English reader. Possibly exception may be taken to the term "classic," as too indiscriminate in its acceptation. But this is a question of faste, and the term itself ją, at best, arbitrary. That fondness for system, which marshals poets in the mass hy reigns and periods, and, still more absurdly, by the metallic ages of gradual degeneracy, has led to much common-place declamation, and much tasteless injustice, as to the decay of poetry, and as to the claims of particular poets to the rank of classical. The word "classic" is not, however, necessarily the symbol of the highest order of excellence. One of the senses affixed to it by Johnson is "relating to antique authors." It may, therefore, be used in simple contra-distinction to the modern Latin poets, such as Fracastorius, or Politian. The term "classic" seems also a convenient designation, as distinguishing the Pagan from the Christian poets. Prudentius is often slid in among the classics; and I had in fact prepared for this collection an extract from his "Essay against Symmachus." But it occurred to me that I was equally bound to include Gregorius of Naziantzen, and Prosper, and Fortunatus, and Synesius, and Sidonius Apollinaris: “a line stretching out to the crack of doom." I have therefore set aside the Latin poets of the Christian Church, as forming a class by themselves. 66 It was not consistent with my plan to comprehend the various poets whose relics are preserved in the Greek and: Latin anthologies; and I have extended the principle of exclusion to all such writers as are more generally known by their prose writings, and whose poetry is, as it were, incidental. That Petronius Arbiter should have |