Excerpt from Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Edited, Together With Additional Notes, Introductory Notices, &C,

It appears desirable to the Editor of the following work to explain in a few words the circumstances which have led to its publication in the present form. The attention of the late Author had long been directed to the illustration of the early history of English Poetry, and his appointment to the professorship of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Oxford in the year 1809, naturally rendered the metrical remains extant in that ancient language objects of his more particular investigation. The origin of the present volume is to be found in the Terminal Lectures which, in virtue of that office, he was called upon to deliver: in whatever degree therefore it may be considered as forming a valuable accession to this branch of letters, it will afford an additional proof of the tendency of our Academical Institutions to cherish an enlarged spirit of literary inquiry on subjects far remote from those peculiar studies, which their opponents have erroneously and injuriously represented as forming the sole objects of a system stigmatized, - with little practical knowledge of its true nature or results, - as narrow, illiberal, and exclusive.

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