DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER FOR PLACING THE ENGRAVINGS, Head, to face the title. Ode to Spring, to face page 3. Apollo, to face page 33. Bard, to face page 34. Progress of Poesy, to face page 49. PREFACE. THE Poems of Mr. GRAY are here presented to the Public in a more elegant style of Typography than they ever before assumed; but this, it is true, were a very small advantage, if unaccompanied by others better entitled to consideration. Of Poetry which has incurred the imputation of being difficult to comprehend, it seemed not an ill-bestowed labour to revise and establish the punctuation. The Edition by Mr. Mason, in Four Volumes, was printed at a provincial Press, and its punctuation is certainly far from accurate; nor can it be discerned, that much attention has been paid to this particular by subsequent Editors. To supply this defect, my best judgment and closest attention have been employed. It had often occurred to me, that many persons of limited education had been deterred by imaginary difficulties from entering with spirit on the perusal of Mr. Gray's Poems; and that much of this was attributable to the uniform manner in which all his Stanzas had |