THE FOLLOWING PAGES

ARE,

WITH THE VERIEST HEART-HOMAGE,

DEDICATED TO

THE FIRST, CHIEFEST, AND MOST LOVELY OF

GOD'S WORKS,

WOMAN.

THERE being more than sufficient in the annexed pages to try the fortitude of l'ami lecteur, I will be proportionably considerate, and cut the discours préliminaire as short as possible.

Of course I am not insane enough to imagine, (if the madness of Poets can have a limit,) that the thorough-paced Prose-monger will doom himself to the peine forte et dure of my poetic rack; and even the indulgent admirer of the "Gay Science" will, I apprehend, have quite enough to do to preserve his equanimity above par.

The peruser of the present Miscellanea may set it down as a true tenet, that had my intellect been fed upon any useful pabulum, instead of (woodcock-like) the springs of the Castalides, the following verses would never have come into either my head or his hand, and thus the literature of the Nineteenth Century would not have been enriched with the treasures of "The Poetic Negligée;" but the mind lying fallow, the