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PRINTED FOR AKERMAN, STRAND; WALKER AND CO. PATERNOSTER-
ROW; REID, CHARING-CROSS; BIGG, PARLIAMENT-STREET;
SHARPE, KING-STREET; CLARKE, ROYAL-EXCHANGE; CHAPPELL,
PALL-MALL; ANDREWS, NEW-BOND-STREET; BELL, OXFORD-
STREET; AND JOHN BUMPUS, HOLBORN.

1822.

Mphim Feich Hist. hib,

MHA&T-01-0

ADVERTISEMENT.

RAPIN (in his Reflections) speaking of the necessary qualities of a poet, tells us, he must have a genius extraordinary; great natural gifts; a wit just, fruitful, piercing, solid, and universal; an understanding clear and distinct; an imagination neat and pleasant; an elevation of soul, that depends not on art or study, but is purely the gift of heaven, which must be sustained by a lively sense and vivacity; judgment to consider wisely of things, and vivacity for the beautiful expression of them, &c.

How justly this character is due to our Author -we leave it to the impartial and intelligent reader to decide.

Dr. Johnson, speaking of this incomparable poem, says, "If inexhaustible wit could give perpetual pleasure, no eye would ever leave halfread the work of Butler; for what poet has ever

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brought so many remote images so happily together? It is scarcely possible to peruse a page without finding some association of images that was never found before. By the first paragraph the reader is amused, by the next he is delighted, and by a few more strained to astonishment. If the French boast the learning of Rabelais, we need not be afraid of confronting them with Butler."

Voltaire, also, in his Letters concerning the English Nation, says, "There is one English

Poem, the title whereof is Hudibras ;-it is Don Quixote, it is our Satire Merippée blended together. I never met with so much wit in one single book as in this."

To say more of this admirable Poem would be superfluous, if not impertinent. We shall therefore only observe, in regard to the advantages which the present edition of our humorous English Classic possesses over preceding ones, that the notes and illustrations comprehend not merely the best notes and explanations of Dr. Grey and former editors, but a very large accession of new matter has been made, the result of months' careful researches at the library of the British Museum, and a diligent perusal of all the modern writers whose labours have thrown

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