Page:Poems - Scott (1875).djvu/9

Excepting some of the Ballads at the beginning of the volume, and a number of the Sonnets, particularly those called 'The Old Scotch House,' the poems now published have been written many years. This being the case, the author thinks he may indulge in the old-fashioned luxury of a Preface; only a short one, however, and merely to state certain circumstances relating to some of the pieces.

In the present volume the writer has collected together the productions he wishes most to preserve, or at least the majority of these; he has carefully revised them, and lovingly decorated them, with the assistance of a friend, as a duty to himself, and to place before the public in a permanent form his credentials to be considered a poet. For a number of years he has been urged to do something of this kind by friends whose judgment in matters poetic is not mere opinion: sweet is praise from the receivers