WIT AND HUMOUR, SELECTED FROM THE ENGLISH POETS: WITH AN ILLUSTRATIVE ESSAY, AND CRITICAL COMMENTS. BY LEIGH HUNT. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. MDCCCXLVI. PREFACE. THIS book was announced for publication last autumn; and it would have appeared at that time but for a severe illness which the editor underwent during the progress of his Stories from the Italian Poets, and the consequences of which conspired with other untoward circumstances to delay it till now. What additional amount of indulgence therefore may be required by his portion of the work, the good-natured reader will not withhold. Luckily, the far greater part of the volume cannot fail to amuse; and in order to make amends for that absence of prose-wit and humour which its limitation to verse rendered at once unavoidable and provoking (considering how much some of the best of the writers excelled in prose, often to the far greater advantage of their pleasantry), the Introductory Essay has been plentifully supplied with examples of both sorts. Comedy, indeed, has had comparatively little to say for itself in verse, even in Shakspeare. Wit and |