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every author could so command, and be so obeyed, they would 
gain more lame, and their readers more pleasure. Following 
his very good example, I would, in all deference and humility 
suggest to my kind and most gracious readers, that these simple 
lays and legends of Summer Flowers, however dull and profitless 
they may be, cannot fail of exciting interest in the realities they 
attempt to celebrate, if their jrerusal be vouchsafed in scenes 
such as gave them birth,—in their native haunts of the quiet 
shady wood, the breezy heath, or the river’s rim. 
