known man of our own day need personal introduction. It is only said, in
consideration that this book will be read by many who cannot know what is
known to those who have access to the works of artists, that Mr. Thomas
Woolner is a Royal Academician, and one of the foremost sculptors of our
day. For a couple of years, from 1877 to 1879, he was Professor of
Sculpture at the Royal Academy. A colossal statue by him in bronze of
Captain Cook was designed for a site overlooking Sydney Harbour. A
poet's mind has given life to his work on the marble, and when he was an
associate with Mr. Millais, Mr. Holman Hunt, and others, who, in 1850,
were endeavouring to bring truth and beauty of expression into art, by
the bold reaction against tame and insincere conventions for which Mr.
Ruskin pleaded and which the time required, Mr. Woolner joined in the
production by them of a magazine called "The Germ," to which some of the
verses in this volume were contributed.

There is no more to say; but through another page let Wordsworth speak
the praise of Books:

Yet is it just
That here, in memory of all books which lay
Their sure foundations in the heart of man,
Whether by native prose, or numerous verse.
That in the name of all inspired souls--
From Homer the great thunderer, from the voice
That roars along the bed of Jewish song,
And that more varied and elaborate,
Those trumpet tones of harmony that shake
Our shores in England--from those loftiest notes,
Down to the low and wren-like warblings, made
For cottagers and spinners at the wheel