For printing [the following piece] some reason
should be given, as not a word of it is original:
it is simply a fine stanza of Akenside, connected
with a still finer from Beattie, by a couplet
from Thomson. This practice, in which the
author sometimes indulges, of linking together,
in his own mind, favourite passages from different
authors, seems in itself unobjectionable:
but, as the publishing such compilations might
lead to confusion in literature, he should deem
himself inexcusable in giving this specimen,
were it not from a hope that it might open to
others a harmless source of private gratification.
—W. W.
