PREFACE.
When we ventured, within a few months after the “Nation” was started, to reprint the Poetry of it, we did an unprecedented thing, and one said to be of doubtful prudence. The Newspaper to be sure had succeeded, but it seemed a trial ruinous to these verses and injurious to the paper to expose its weekly miscellanies to the test of permanent criticism. “They are light cavalry,” said a friend; “they have charged famously for once, you’ll find them jaded hacks when wheeled again into line.” We trusted, them and published.
Yet their success has surprised us. We hardly hoped that their popularity could extend beyond our own class and country. But the Tory has praised them more than the Liberal, the anti-Repealer as much as the Nationalist, while their success in foreign countries has at least equalled their success here. Mr. O’Connell thought the ballads “very good,” Mr. Shaw “most able,” Mr. Butt “inspired.” The Irish press thought them excellent for Ireland, but the Morning Post said they were “superior to anything they had supposed to exist at present;” the Leeds Times thought them “great achievements,” and the Tablet called them “the music
