ABSTRACT
In conclusion, I venture to express my entire conviction, which will, I think, be borne out by the opinion of all who are conversant with the very peculiar style and versification of Donne, that the transcribers of these MSS have not erred in assigning these poems to him. The least works of an author who, though little appreciated in our day, ranked among the choice luminaries of his own, are worth preserving; and some of the verses now printed may challenge comparison with the best of the poems hitherto published as his. I therefore trust that they will be acceptable as a not uninteresting contribution to the works of a poet, who, whatever may have been his faults, and however he may have been deficient in some of the highest characteristics of the poetic mind, will always deserve attention for the keenness of his wit, and the exuberance of his fancy,-a quality in which he is perhaps without a rival, even among those Italians upon whose fantastic conceits he seems to have modelled his style.
