OF the miscellaneous collection of verse that follows, only four pieces
have been published, though many were written long ago, and other partly
written. In some few cases the verses were turned into prose and printed
as such, it having been unanticipated at that time that they might see
the light.
Whenever an ancient and legitimate word of the district, for which there
was no equivalent in received English, suggested itself as the most
natural, nearest, and often only expression of a thought, it has been
made use of, on what seemed good grounds.
The pieces are in a large degree dramatic or personative in conception;
and this even where they are not obviously so.
The dates attached to some of the poems do not apply to the rough
sketches given in illustration, which have been recently made, and, as
may be surmised, are inserted for personal and local reasons rather than
for their intrinsic qualities.