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PREFACE.
xxxix.
fickleness or stability of the relations of particular ideas to each other; and above all, since he is so much less interested in the subject, he may decide lightly and carelessly.
Long as I have detained my Reader, I hope he will permit me to caution him against a mode of false criticism which has been applied to Poetry in which the language closely resembles that of life and nature. Such verses have been triumphed over in parodies of which Dr. Johnson's Stanza is a fair specimen.
"I put my hat upon my head,
And walk'd into the Strand,
And there I met another man
Whose hat was in his hand."
And walk'd into the Strand,
And there I met another man
Whose hat was in his hand."
Immediately under these lines I will place one of the most justly admired stanzas of the "Babes in the Wood."
