I was also blamed by some for not introducing more Southern authors into my book. But, in the preparation of the work, I never thought or cared what was the latitude of the writer's birth, but only what were his merits. In my second edition, having sixty new names, I introduced a few more Southern writers, numerically, but not more in proportion; for if seven-eighths of our most eminent poets, historians, essayists, and theologians would be born in the free States, I see not how I could help it; and, having had nothing to do with the arrangement, I do not see exactly how I am to be blamed for it.1

In this third edition no additional matter, of course, has been introduced, as the work is stereotyped; but a few typographical errors have been corrected, and the Index has been carefully and thoroughly revised and reset.

In conclusion, I would make my most grateful acknowledgments to those and they are many-who made various friendly suggestions for the improvement of my humble volume. They will see that in most cases their views were partially if not wholly adopted; and if I did not avail myself of their hints in all cases, it was simply because I could not do so consistently with my own taste and judgment. But I do not the less appreciate their true kindness, and the interest they manifested in my book; and I am sure that, knowing the many difficulties that beset one, on every side, engaged in such a work,—the diversities of taste, the dif ferences of judgment, the mass of material to be selected from, the various considerations to be taken into account in admitting or rejecting both writers and selections, they will look upon the result of my labor now completed, with kindliness, if not with commendation.

PHILADELPHIA, August 18, 1859.

CHARLES D. CLEVELAND.

1 Of the one hundred and sixty-eight authors in my book, forty-eigh were born in Massachusetts; twenty-five in New York; twenty-three in Connecticut; seventeen in Pennsylvania; eleven in Maine; six in New Hampshire; six in Virginia; five in Maryland; four in New Jersey; four in South Carolina; three in Vermont; three in Rhode Island; three in Scotland; two in Ohio; one in Delaware; one in Louisiana; one in Michigan; one in Africa; one in Bermuda; one in Ireland; one in South America; and one in the West Indies.