Samuel Carter Hall, The Book of Gems. The Poets and Artists of Great Britain. 3 Volumes (London: Saunders and Otley, 1836)

Information about the collection: After the preface in the first volume there are four pages containing 50 signatures (see Hall's comments on these below) of the authors included in the text. [volume 1][volume 2][volume 3]

Preface to the First Volume: The Editor of this Volume trusts that his attempt to extend the knowledge and appreciation of British Poetry and British Art will be favourably received by the Public. His object has been to collect and arrange, in a popular and attractive form, the most perfect specimens of the Poets, illustrated by the pencils of the Artists, of Great Britain.

The task was one in which success is more easy than failure; inasmuch as beauties so abound in our older Poets that the only difficulty lies in rejection. The earliest age of English Poetry was one of sublime invention, and may here be traced in its course down to the days of agreeable imitation. It is not less instructive than delightful to follow such inquiries; and whether the reader is met by the inventive energy and luxurious rapture of the first Poets, by the various and abundant fancies that succeeded, by the nervous and manly style which rose upon their decline, or by the gay and graceful imitators who sought to restore them -- in all he will recognise sources of distinct delight, and acknowledge with the greatest of their later followers, the gratitude we owe to men who have given us

"nobler loves and nobler cares,
The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight."

for such is the inheritance they bequeath to us, in the simplest exercise of their high privilege. What they receive, they do, indeed, bountifully distribute. "Poetry," says Lord Bacon, in the most perfect definition that was ever given, "conforms the shows of things to the desires of the soul." This power their works bestow in turn upon us all. May the present volume assist in extending the blessings of so divine an influence!

Among these specimens of the Poets there may be several with which general readers are already familiar; but they are such as could not have been omitted from a collection of this nature. The volume will be found to contain much that has been hitherto condemned to comparative oblivion.

The Editor has sought by every possible means to give completeness to his work: -- by consulting all the approved authorities, collating the text with the best editions, and comparing the statements and opinions of the most skillful and judicious critics. Having had the advantage that results from the labours of many who have gone before him, it cannot be presumptuous in him to state that he has been enabled to correct numerous errors which had been transmitted from edition to edition.

His extracts have been made from the earliest copies of the several writers; he has therefore retained the peculiar orthography of each, and presented them as they were originally produced, rather than as their modern editors have transcribed them. He has thought it unadvisable to load his brief biographies with references to authorities; but trusts they have been compiled with care and accuracy, and that he has maturely weighed the slight criticisms he has ventured to append to them.

The Editor is bound to express his grateful thanks to the Artists who have aided him in his undertaking. To their kindness and liberality he is mainly indebted for the power to bring his volume within a reasonable rate of expense. It will be observed that he has given but one specimen of each Painter -- his design being to supply examples of the Art as well as of the Poetry of Great Britain, and to obtain as much variety as was possible, in both.

The illustrations are now engraved for the first time. He has obtained the assistance of the most eminent engravers; and, he believes, the prints will be considered as among the most successful productions of the age.

In the confident anticipation of the plan of this work receiving sanction of the public, it is proposed to issue a second part, which will contain the poets who follow Prior.

The autographs have been copied from authentic documents. Although the most unremitting exertions were used to render the series complete, it was found impossible to procure those of Chaucer, Lydgate, James the First, Hawes, Carew, Quarles, Shirley, Habington, and Lovelace; and it may be asserted with some confidence that their existence is unknown to collectors.

It only remains for the Editor to state, that the Publishers have co-operated with him in his endeavours to produce a work which shall be worthy of public patronage.

CHAUCER
From the Floure and the Leafe

LYDGATE
From the Lyfe of our Ladye
From the Boke of Troye

JAMES I
From the King's Quair

HAWES
From the Pastime of Plesure

WYAT
The Lover complaineth the Unkindness of his Love
The Lover determineth to Serve Faithfully

SURREY
Prisoner in Windsor, he recounteth his Pleasure there passed
Description of Spring, wherein eche thing renewes, save only the Lover
A Praise of hys Love, wherein he reproveth them that compare their Ladies with his
Description of the restless State of a Lover, with Sute to his Lady, to rue on his Dieing Hart
Description of the restless Estate of a Lover
The Lover excuseth himself of suspected change

SACKVILLE
From the Induction to a Mirrour for Magistrates

VERE
Fancy and Desire
The Judgment of Desire
The Shepheard's Commendation of his Nimph
A Lover disdained, complaineth
Lines attributed to the Earl of Oxford

GASCOIGNE
From a Voyage into Hollande
The Arraignment of a Lover

RALEIGH
The Shepheard to the Flowers
The Shepheard's Description of Love
The silent Lover
A Vision upon the Fairy Queen
The Night before his Death
The Lye

SPENSER
From the Faerie Queene

SIDNEY
From Astrophel and Stella
Song
Song
Song

BROOKE
From a Treatise of Warres
From a Treatise of Religion

SOUTHWELL
Love's Servile Lot

DANIEL
To the Ladie Anne Clifford
To the Ladie Margaret, Countesse of Cumberland
To Henry Wriothesly, Earle of Southampton
Sonnet
Sonnet
A Pastoral
An Ode

DRAYTON
From Pely-Olbion
Ideas
To Himselfe and the Harpe
An Ode Written in the Peake

SHAKSPEARE
Sonnets

WOTTON
A Farewell to the Vanities of the World
On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia
The Character of a Happy Life

DAVIES
From the Immortality of the Soul

DONNE
The Storm
The Good-Morrow
The Will
The Bait
Love's Deitie
Breake of Day
The Message
The Legacy
Song
Song

JONSON
From Masques at Court
To Penshurst
The Sweet Neglect. -- From the Silent Woman
Echo on Narcissus -- From Cynthia's Revells
To Celia
Hymne to Diana -- From Cynthia's Revells
Song. -- From the Poetaster
Song. -- From the Foxe
Epitaph on Elizabeth L.H.
To Francis Beaumont

CORBET
The Fairies Farewell
To his Son Vincent Corbet

PHINEAS FLETCHER
From the Purple Island

GILES FLETCHER
From Christ's Triumph on Earth

DRUMMOND
The Instability of Mortal Glory
Sonnets

WITHER
A Sonnet upon a Stolen Kiss
From the Shepheards Hunting
The Shepheard's Resolution
From Fair Virtue
The Stedfast Shepheard

CAREW
To the Countess of Anglesey
Disdain Returned
Ingrateful Beauty Threatened
Song
The Primrose
Pleasure. -- From Coelum Britannicum

BROWNE
From Britannia's Pastorals
The Siren's Song. -- From the Inner Temple Masque

HERRICK
Art above Nature. -- To Julia
The Captived Bee, or the Little Filcher
The Night Piece. -- To Julia
To Blossoms
To Daffodils
Corinna going a Maying
To Primroses, filled with Morning Dew
Song

QUARLES
An Elegy
From Divine Emblems

HERBERT
Mattens
The Flower
Virtue

SHIRLEY
Death's Final Conquest
Victorious Men of Earth
Good Morrow
Melancholy converted
Upon his Mistress sad

DAVENANT
From Gondibert
Song
Song
Song

WALLER
To a very Young Lady
Song
To a Lady singing a Song of his Composing
On a Girdle
Love's Farewell

HABINGTON
Eccho to Narcissus
The Description of Castara
To Castara

MILTON
L'Allegro
Il Penseroso
On his Blindness

SUCKLING
Song
Song
The Careless Lover
Constancy
Love turn'd to Hatred
Detraction execrated

BUTLER
From Hudibras

CRASHAW
The Hymn, O Gloriosa Domina
An Ode which was prefixed to a Prayer Booke given to a Young Gentlewoman

DENHAM
From Cooper's Hill
Upon the Game of Chess

COWLEY
The Complaint
Resolved to Love
Anacreontics. -- Drinking
The Grasshopper

LOVELACE
To Sir Peter Lely, on his Picture of Charles I
To Lucasta. -- Going to the Wars
The Scrutiny
To Althea. -- From Prison

MARVELL
The Picture of T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers
Bermudas
The Nymph complaining for the Death of her Fawn
To his Coy Mistress

DRYDEN
From Eleonora
From Religio Laici
From an Epistle to Sir Godfrey Kneller
A Song

ROSCOMMON
From an Essay on Translated Verse

DORSET
Song
Song

SEDLEY
Song
The Indifference
Song

ROCHESTER
Upon Drinking in a Bowl
A Song
Constancy
Love and Life
A Song

SHEFFIELD
To a Coquet Beauty
On the Times
Song

PRIOR
From Henry and Emma
From Solomon
A Song
A Song

Preface: In submitting to the Public a second volume of the Book of Gems, -- completing the proposed Centenary of British Poets and British Artists, -- the Editor is bound to express his grateful sense of the support by which his labours have been recompensed; -- and trusts he may be again successful in his efforts to obtain that extensive patronage which can alone reward the Publishers for an undertaking costly almost beyond precedent.

His project having been thus completed, he hopes that it accomplishes what was originally had in view, -- "to collect and arrange, in a popular and attractive form, the most perfect specimens of the Poets, illustrated by the pencils of the Artists, of Great Britain," -- and that he has succeeded in "extending the knowledge and appreciation of British Poetry and British Art."

It will be perceived that the series terminates with Bloomfield. It is presumed that a volume containing selections from the Poets by whom our Own Times have been more immediately distinguished, will be acceptable to the public; -- and that the success of this Collection will be such as to justify the Editor in acting upon his earnest desire to undertake it.

POMFRET
Inscription for a Monument
The Choice
To his Friend inclined to Marry

SWIFT
From Cadenus and Vanessa
On the Death of Dr. Swift
An Elegy on the Death of Demar

ADDISON
From a Letter from Italy
Paraphrase on Psalm XXIII
An Ode

WATTS
Love on a Cross and a Throne
False Greatness
Few Happy Matches
Earth and Heaven
True Riches
Looking Upward

PHILIPS
From Cider
The Splendid Shilling

PARNELL
The Hermit
Song

YOUNG
From the Complaint; or, Night Thoughts
From the Love of Fame

TICKELL
From Oxford
Colin and Lucy

RAMSAY
From the Gentle Shepherd

POPE
From Windsor Forest
From the Rape of the Lock
From an Essay on Man
Elegy to the Memory of an unfortunate Lady
From the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot
Prologue to Mr. Addison's Tragedy of Cato

GAY
From Rural Sports
The Farmer's Wife and the Raven
A Contemplation on Night

SOMERVILLE
From Field Sports
From the Chase

GREEN
From the Spleen
The Sparrow and Diamond

SAVAGE
From the Wanderer

BLAIR
From the Grave

THOMSON
From the Seasons
A Hymn
From the Castle of Indolence
Song
Ode

MALLET
From Amyntor and Theodora
Edwin and Emma
William and Margaret
Song

DYER
From the Fleece
Grongar Hill

HAMILTON
From the Triumph of Love
A Soliloquy

BROOKE
From the Female Seducers
A Dirge

LYTTLETON
Advice to a Lady

JOHNSON
From "London, a Poem"
Prologue, spoken by Mr. Garrick, at the Opening of the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane, 1747
On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet
From the Vanity of Human Wishes

ARMSTRONG
From the Art of Preserving Health

GLOVER
Admiral Hosier's Ghost

SHENSTONE
From the School-Mistress
Hope. A Pastoral Ballad

GRAY
Ode on a distant Prospect of Eton College
The Progress of Poesy
The Triumphs of Owen

COLLINS
Ode to Mercy
Ode to Evening
Dirge in Cymbeline
To Simplicity

SMOLLETT
The Tears of Scotland
Ode to Leven-Water

AKENSIDE
From the Pleasures of the Imagination
From an Ode to the Honourable Charles Townshend

COTTON
The Fire-side

MASON
Ode on the Fate of Tyranny

WARTON
From an Ode to Summer
Inscription in a Hermitage
Ode to the First of April

GOLDSMITH
From the Deserted Village
From the Traveller
Stanzas on Woman
Song

CUNNINGHAM
May-Eve; or Kate of Aberdeen
Morning
A Song, sent with a Rose

FALCONER
From the Shipwreck

SCOTT
The Tempestuous Evening
Privateering
Childhood

CHURCHILL
From an Epistle to William Hogarth
From the Rosciad

COWPER
From the Task
On the receipt of my Mother's Picture out of Norfolk, the Gift of my Cousin Ann Bodham
Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk, during his solitary abode in the Island of Juan Fernandez

DARWIN
From the Botanic Garden

LLOYD
The Cit's Country Box

BEATTIE
From the Minstrel

LANGHORNE
From the Country Justice
Ode to the River Eden
Inscription on a Study Door
To a Red-breast

HAYLEY
From an Essay on Painting
From an Essay on Epic Poetry
From the Triumphs of Temper

JONES
Song of Hafiz
Song

LOGAN
The Braes of Yarrow
Ode to the Cuckoo

BARNARD
Auld Robin Gray

CHATTERTON
Elinoure and Juga
The Mynstrelles Songe, from AElla
AElla, Atte Watchette
Chorus, from Goddwynn
An Excelente Balade of Charite
On Happienesse, by William Canynge
Resignation

BURNS
Tam O'Shanter
Epistle to a Young Friend
Jessy
To a Mountain Daisy, -- on turning one down with the Plough

HURDIS
From the Favourite Village
From the Village Curate
From Adriano, or the First of June

BLOOMFIELD
From the Farmer's Boy
The Widow to her Hour-Glass
Rosy Hannah
Lucy
Woodland Hallo
Love of the Country

Preface: The Book of Gems of Modern Poets is published under difficulties with which the Editor had not to contend in the two preceding volumes of the Work.

However fearlessly a critic may write of those who are beyond the influence of opinions, it must be otherwise in regard to those who are present to detect and expose such as are erroneous. The anonymous in literature may not be beneficial to it; -- at least it gives a freer tone: of this screen it has been impossible for the Editor to avail himself; and he must, consequently, rest his hopes of satisfying the Poets and the Public on the consciousness that, while he has laboured to avoid the semblance of presumption, he has expressed of the Poets and their productions exactly what he thought. If to have worked with the full knowledge that he had a delicate and arduous task to perform, may have gone far in enabling him to discharge it adequately, he can have but little apprehension of the result.

With scarcely an exception, he has been favoured by the living Poets with memoranda for his brief biographies; and, with most of them, he has the honour to be personally acquainted. As regards facts, therefore, he has gone upon sure ground; and, as it was his duty to introduce into the volume only such as have achieved and merited fame, he trusts that his criticisms will be neither displeasing to them, nor unsatisfactory to the public.

He feels it necessary to apologize for having omitted from the list many who may be justly considered deserving of introduction into it; but the nature of his plan, and the immense expenditure necessary to complete it, confined him to narrower limits than he desired. He trusts that his Selection will not be judged in reference to those he has been compelled to pass over; and that he will be considered as having classed among "British Poets" none who have doubtful claims to the distinction.

In selecting the Poems, he may not always have met the taste of his readers: upon this point he can only observe, that he has endeavoured to extract such examples as might best exhibit the genius of the Poet; and has taken complete poems, though short, in preference to detached passages from more extensive works.

The Editor earnestly, and with some degree of confidence, hopes that his Selections from the Modern Poets may have the effect of directing attention to the sources whence they are drawn, -- of increasing that taste for Poetry which the "scientific spirit of the age" has lessened, -- and of adding to the circulation of the "Works," by showing the enjoyment and instruction that may be derived from them.

The Editor has now performed the duty he undertook three years ago: he has been gratified to find that his labours have been neither unappreciated nor unrecompensed. For the compliments he has received through public channels, and in private communication, from those whose praise is a liberal reward, he feels duly grateful; and trusts that at the conclusion of his arduous task, they will be continued to him.

WORDSWORTH
Sonnet
An Ode. Imitations of Immortality, from Recollections of early Childhood
Lucy
Sonnets: -- Scorn not the Sonnet; It is a Beauteous Evening; The World is too much with us; London, 1802; Composed upon Westminster Bridge; Great Men
To a Skylark
She Dwelt among the untrodden Ways

BYRON
Inscription on the Monument of a Dog
The Dream
Farewell

SOUTHEY
Sunrise
Remembrance
Hannah
The Ebb Tide
The Victory
The Battle of Blenheim
To a Bee
Sonnet

MOORE
Written in an Album
I saw thy Form in Youthful Prime
I saw from the Beach
This Life is all chequered with Pleasures and Woes
St. Jerome's Love
Oft, in the Silly Night
When 'midst the Gay I meet

SHELLEY
Venice
The Cloud
An Exhortation
Mutability
To Night
To a Skylard

COLERIDGE
The Garden of Boccaccio
Love
The Nightingale
Lines, written in the Album at Elbingerode, in the Hartz Forest
Recollections of Love

MILMAN
Hymn
The Merry Heart
The Love of God

ELLIOTT
The Wonders of the Lane
The Dying Boy to the Sloe Blossom
A Poet's Epitaph
To the Bramble Flower

LAMB
The Gipsy's Malison
Hester
Sonnets
On an Infant Dying as soon as Born

MONTGOMERY
The Grave
Friends
Hannah

WHITE
Description of a Summer's Eve
The Savoyard's Return

WILSON
From Edith and Nora
Lines written in a Highland Glen
A Churchyard Dream
The Widowed Mother
The Three Seasons of Love

CRABBE
The Sands
Roger Cuff
Stanzas
Woman

SCOTT
Farewell to the Muse
Hunting Song
Lochinvar
Lullaby on an Infant Chief
Hellvellyn
Jock of Hazeldean
Nora's Vow

SOTHEBY
Salvator
Rome
The Grotto of Egeria

KEATS
Madeline; from "Isabella"
Ode to a Nightingale
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Sonnets
Stanzas
To Autumn

HOGG
The Stranded Ship
The Wee House
The Broken Heart
Mary Gray
The Skylark
An Arabian Song

HEMANS
Cathedral Hymn
The Song of Night
The Hebrey Mother
The Captive Knight
The Trumpet
The Return to Poetry
The Treasures of the Deep

CUNNINGHAM
The Town and Country Child
Awake, my Love
The Lass of Gleneslan Mill
The Poet's Bridal Day Song
A wet Sheet and a flowing Sea

HUNT
Songs and Chorus of the Flowers
To a Child, during Sickness
The Glove and the Lions
The Fish, the Man, and the Spirit
Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel

CLARE
June
The Quiet Mind
Mary Lee

NORTON
The Mourners
The Mother's Heart
The Child of Earth

ROGERS
An Italian Song
On a Tear
To an Old Oak

LANDON
Little Red Riding Hood
The First Grave, in the new Churchyard at Brompton
The Moon
Venice

CROLY
The Tuileries, from "Paris in 1815"
Pericles and Aspasia
Lines written at Spithead
Leonidas
The Death of Leonidas

WOLFE
The Burial of Sir John Moore
Song

LANDOR
Clifton
The Dragon Fly
To Ianthe
Faesulan Idyl
The Maid's Lament
To Corinth
The Briar
Sixteen

CAMPBELL
To the Evening Star
To the Rainbow
Ye Mariners of England
Exile of Erin
Hohenlinden
The Last Man
The Soldier's Dream

PROCTER
The Fisherman
Song
Woman
Stanzas
The Blood Horse
King Death
Dirge
Serenade
Life
To a Wounded Singing Bird
An Invocation to Birds

BOWLES
St. Michael's Mount
Chantrey's Sleeping Children
Restoration of Malmesbury Abbey
Summer Evening, at Home
Winter Evening, at Home
Sonnets: -- Time; Dover Cliffs; April; May; Netley Abbey
Remembrance

TIGHE
Hagar in the Desert
From "Psyche"
On Receiving a Branch of Mezereon, which flowered at Woodstock, December 1809

WOLCOT
Fighting Dogs
To Julia
Song
Madrigal
A Pastoral Song
Song
Economy

POLLOCK
Maternal Love
The Resurrection

HOOD
To a Cold Beauty
Ruth
Ballad
I Remember, I Remember
Ode
Ballad

DIBDIN
I Sailed from the Downs
Tom Bowling
Lovely Nan
Blow High, Blow Low
Bold Jack

BAILLIE
To a Child
The Kitten
Welcome Bat and Owlet Gray

TENNYSON
Buonaparte
Mariana
The Merman
The Mermaid
Lilian
Love and Death

HOWITT
An Old Man's Story
Mountain Children

HERVEY
A Twilight Landscape
The Convict Ship
I am all Alone
She Sleeps, that Still and Placid Sleep

BAYLY
The Gipsies' Haunt
The First Grey Hair
The Neglected Child
Upon thy Truth Relying
Oh say not 'twere a keener Blow