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82105

SPECIMENS

OF

AMERICAN POETRY,

WITH

CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL

NOTICES.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

BY SAMUEL KETTELL,

VOL. I.

BOSTON,-S. G. GOODRICH AND CO.

MDCCCXXIX.、

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, to wit:

District Clerk's Office.

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the fourth day of April, a. D. 1829, in the fiftythird year of the Independence of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Š. G. Goodrich & Co. of the said district, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit:

"Specimens of American Poetry, with Critical and Biographical Notices: In Three Volumes. By SAMUEL Kettell.”

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned;" and also to an act, entitled, "An act supplementary to an act, entitled, an act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned; and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints."

JNO. W. DAVIS, Clerk of the District of

Massachusetts.

BOSTON,

Press of Isaac R. Butts.

I

४ १०. । K51-2

PREFACE.

THE following work is the result of an attempt to do something for the cause of American literature, by calling into notice and preserving a portion of what is valuable and characteristic in the writings of our native poets. As a pursuit of mere literary curiosity, there exist no ordinary inducements to the prosecution of such an enterprise, but when we take into view the influence which an endeavor like this, to rescue from oblivion the efforts of native genius must necessarily have upon the state of letters among us, we shall have occasion to wonder that an undertaking of the kind has not sooner been entered upon. The truth is, that our neglect upon this point is in some degree a matter of reproach to us, The literary productions of our fathers have been held in unwarrantable disesteem by their descendants, who have reason to pride themselves upon the monuments of genius and learning left them by preceding generations. What though our early literature cannot boast of a Dante or a Chaucer, it can furnish such testimonials of talent and mental cultivation as are highly creditable

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