H42.7

THE

BRITISH MUSE,

OR,

A Collection of THOUGHTS

Moral, Natural, and Sublime,

OF OUR

ENGLISH POETS:

Who flourished in the

Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.

With feveral curious TOPICKS, and beautiful
PASSAGES, never before extracted, from.
SHAKESPEAR, JOHNSON, BEAUMONT,
FLETCHER, and above a Hundred more.
The Whole digefted Alphabetically under their
refpective Heads, according to the Order of
TIME in which they wrote; to fhew the
gradual IMPROVEMENTS of our Poetry and
Language.

In THREE VOLUME S.

By THOMAS HAYWARD, Gent.

With an Hiftorical and Critical REVIEW of THIS, and all the COLLECTIONS of this Kind hitherto published.

LONDON,

Printed for F. COGAN, at the Middle Temple Gate in Fleetftreet, and J. NOURSE, at the Latab without Temple-Bar.

M. DCC. XXXVIII.

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PREFACE,

Containing an Hiftorical and Critical
Review of all the Collections of this
Kind that were ever published..

HE fuppofed eafe of digeft-
ing the fine thoughts of our
poets under their proper heads,
has, no doubt, given birth to
the feveral undertakings of
this kind that have appeared in publick;
and, probably, to many others of the fame
nature, which still fleep, or have expired
in manufcript. The advantage also arifing
from fuch collections, may have had no
fmall fhare in inducing feveral to make
them publick: For with what fuccefs may
not an author flatter himself, who fupplies
his reader with the fruits of a long appli-
cation, at the expence of little time and
pains; efpecially when those immortal
fruits carry with them the neceffity of
charming, infpiring, forming all hearts,
and, like fcattered rays collected. in one
A 2
point