In submitting to the Public a second volume of the Book or 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.

To his American readers he is desirous of offering a few words of thanks for the past and of anticipation for the future. The Poets of the people of Great Britain are the Poets of the citizens of the United States; and as with us they have been too little known, so it may be with them. It is hoped and believed that in a nation which has at once bounded from youth to manhood, there will be a due estimate of the contents of these volumes, exhibiting, as they do, the riches and glories of a common ancestry.