A double aim has hence governed and limited both the selection and the
treatment of my subjects. The choice has necessarily fallen, often, not
on simply picturesque incident or unfamiliar character, but on the men
and things that we think of first, when thinking of the long chronicle of
England,--or upon such as represent and symbolize the main current of it.
Themes, however, on which able or popular song is already extant,--notably
in case of Scotland,--I have in general avoided. In the rendering, my
desire has been always to rest the poetry of each Vision on its own
intrinsic interest; to write with a straightforward eye to the object
alone; not studious of ornament for ornament's sake; allowing the least
possible overt intrusion of the writer's personality; and, in accordance
with lyrical law, seeking, as a rule, to fix upon some factual picture
for each poem.
* * * * *
To define, thus, the scope of what this book attempts, is, in itself, a
confession of presumptuousness,--the writer's own sense of which is but
feebly and imperfectly expressed in the words from Vergil's letter to
Augustus prefixed as my motto. In truth, so rich and so wide are the
materials, that to scheme a lyrical series which should really paint the
_Gesta Anglorum_ in their fulness might almost argue 'lack of wit,'
_vitium mentis_, in much greater powers than mine.
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