al PREFACE.

to have been made; and certainly, so long as man
exists, they can never perish; but, by their indestructi-
bility itself, they are legitimate subjects for every age to
clothe with its own garniture of manners and sentiment,
and to imbue with its own morality. In the present
version they may have lost much of their classical aspect
(or, at all events, the author has not been careful to
preserve it), and have, perhaps, assumed a Gothic or
romantic guise.

In performing this pleasant task, —for it has been
really a task fit for hot weather, and one of the most
agreeable, of a literary kind, which he ever undertook, —
the author has not always thought it necessary to write
downward, in order to meet the comprehension of chil-
dren. He has generally suffered the theme to soar,
whenever such was its tendency, and when he himself
was buoyant enough to follow without an effort. Chil-
dren possess an unestimated sensibility to whatever is
deep or high, m imagination or feeling, so long as it is
simple, likewise. It is only the artificial and the com-

plex that bewilder them.
LENox, July 15, 1851.