CHOICE SPECIMENS

OF

AMERICAN LITERATURE,

AND

LITERARY READER,



BEING SELECTIONS FROM THE CHIEF AMERICAN WRITERS,

BY

PROF. BENJ. N. MARTIN, D.D., L.H.D., PROFESSOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE
CITY OF NEW YORK. 1874



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The former edition of this work was prepared simply as a supplement to
Shaw's "Choice Specimens of English Literature." Though it extended to
a larger size than had been anticipated, and was therefore issued in a
separate volume, it still proved so straitened in point of space as to
be in some important respects defective and inadequate. The decision of
the publishers to reprint it in an enlarged form furnishes to the editor
a welcome opportunity to correct its deficiencies, and to make several