12 14-53 ме ا لنز Clawland C. Stebbins 7-20-44 PREFACE. THIS Volume contains my earliest literary productions, written when the vivid feelings and perceptions of a young heart and ardent imagination found their natural language in poetry. Some of these are perhaps already known to the reader, having appeared anonymously, with my initials; and, when I grew bolder, with my name. The titles and subjects of many of them have been unscrupulously appropriated; and, in more than one instance, entire poems have been claimed by persons who certainly never saw them till after they were in print. Under these circumstances, I have been induced to gather these scattered leaves together, and publish them in a form that may enable me to vindicate my claims to the original and genuine authorship of " The Life-Boat," "The Seven Hearts of Condé," and others of my pirated poems. Blended with these will be found many that have never before appeared, written after the season of the beau ideal had been succeeded by that of reflection, and the romance of youthful fancy chastened and sobered down by the experience and realities of life, and the lessons which a long series of years spent in the investigation of the evidences of historic truth could scarcely fail to impart. Such as the volume is, I venture to hope that it may prove an acceptable offering to all "gentle readers," especially those of "The Lives of the Queens of England," and that, like that work, I may have the happiness of seeing it in the hands of the youthful members of a family as well as in those of their parents. Her late Majesty Queen Adelaide having been graciously pleased to accept the dedication of this volume, with the gratifying expression “That she should feel proud of seeing her name connected with any of my writings," I inscribe it as a tribute of grateful respect and admiration to the honoured memory of that amiable and much-lamented Princess, who, in her death, as in her life, afforded the brightest example of Christian holiness, and must ever be regarded as one of the best, and certainly the most faultless, of our Queens. Reydon Hall, Suffolk. |