Throughout we have endeavoured with all fidelity to reproduce our Worthy in integrity of text and orthography—diminishing only (slightly) italics and capitals, and as usual giving capitals to all divine Names (nouns and pronouns) and personifications. In Notes and Illustrations all various readings are recorded, and such elucidations and filling-in of names and allusions as are likely to be helpful.
It is now my pleasant duty to return right hearty, because heartfelt, thanks to many friends and correspondents who have aided me in a somewhat arduous and difficult work and 'labour of love.' To the venerable and illustrious man whose name by express permission adorns my Dedication, I owe a debt of gratitude for a beautiful, a pathetic, a (to me) sacred Letter, that greatly animated me to go forward. By my admirable friends Revs. J.H. Clark, M.A., of West Dereham, Norfolk, and Thomas Ashe, M.A., Ipswich, my edition (as Vol. II. will evidence) is advantaged in various Translations for the first time of the Latin poems, valuable in themselves, and the more valued for the generous enthusiasm and modesty with which they were offered, not to say how considerably they have lightened my own work in the same field. To Dr. Brinsley Nicholson, who retains in the Army his fine literary culture and acumen; to W. Aldis Wright, Esq., M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge; the very Reverend Dr. F.C. Husenbeth, Cossey, Norwich; the Earl and Countess of Denbigh; Monsignor Stonor, Rome; to Correspondents at Loretto, Douai, Paris, &c.; and to Colonel Chester and Mr. W.T. Brooke, London,—I wish to tender my warmest thanks for various services most pleasantly rendered; all to the enrichment of our edition.
The Illustrations (in the 4to) speak for themselves. I cannot sufficiently express my acknowledgments for the spontaneous and ever-increasing willinghood of my artist-poet friend W.J. Linton, Esq., who from his temporary Transatlantic home has sent me the exquisite head- and tail-pieces in both volumes, besides cunningly interpreting the two original Illustrations drawn for me by Mrs. Hugh Blackburn of Glasgow, and the Poet's 'Weeper.' To Mrs. Blackburn her work is its own abundant reward; but none the less do I appreciate her great kindness to me.
Anything else needing to be said will be found in the Memorial-Introduction and Essay on the Life and Poetry, and Notes and Illustrations. I cannot better close our Preface than with the fine tribute of R. Aris Willmott, in his 'Dream of the Poets,' wherein he catches up the echo of Cowley across two centuries:
Poet and Saint! thy sky was dark
And sad thy lonely vigil here;
But thy meek spirit, like the lark
Still showered music on the ear,
From its own heaven ever clear:
No pining mourner thou! thy strain
Could breathe a slumber upon Pain,
Singing thy tears asleep: not long
To stray by Siloa's brook was thine:
Yet Time hath never dealt thee wrong,
Nor brush'd the sweet bloom from thy line:
Thou hast a home in every song,
In every Christian heart, a shrine.
Alexander B. Grosart.
15 St. Alban's Place, Blackburn, Lancashire,
4th February 1872.
