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Excerpt from Sprays, Leaflets and Blossoms
As I have been solicited by numerous friends to prepare a volume of my poems and verses for the Public, I have collected this edition, bearing the title of sprays, leaflets, and blossoms, which are dedicated, by kind permission, to the Right Hon. The Earl of Derby. It will be acknowledged by every thoughtful mind that it is better to strive to elevate our position in society, socially, morally, and intellectually, than to degrade ourselves by alifetime spent in vice and misery. If so, my readers will not consider me presumptuous in introducing this little work, coming (as it does) from the very heart of the working. Classes. Not from that class that enjoys the fresh air and lives in the sunshine, and is enchanted by the music of birds and brooklets, and whose home lay by the ¿owery paths of the woodland, - no, but from the heart of the pale-faced artisan, who breathes the contaminating and poisonous atmosphere of the narrow and overcrowded workshop; 'from that class that is shut out (as it were) from the world, and from all that is pleasant and beautiful. Of this class the author of the present; work is a member, and my readers are aware that it is difficult to sing the Lord's song'in a strange land, therefore they will not expect me to please the refined scholar, my aim being to spread morality and refinement of taste amongst the class to whom I belong, and to see it rise from ignorance and oppression to intelligence and freedom, is the sincere desire of the reader's.
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