Excerpt from The Last Plague of Egypt, the German Gladiators, Great King Herod, and Other Poems: A Metrical Medley of Original Pieces, Written at Various Times, for the Amusement of the Author's Children, and Also for General Readers Good wine, says the well-worn proverb, needs no bush. In like manner, a book that tells its own story sufficiently, requires a preface of very moderate dimensions. The writer is by no means of the opinion that the purpose of language is the concealment of one's thoughts. Language is the mirror of the mind. In proportion to its clearness does it reflect the thoughts of the speaker, or writer, to the readers or listeners, with greater or less distinctness. Much pains have therefore been taken to make the following pieces as intelligible as possible. Many of them have been, for years, a source of amusement to the author's children. He trusts that they may now prove acceptable to a wider circle of readers. As for the author himself, they have beguiled many an hour, when severer work was prohibited. He trusts that any possible tinge of melancholy which may perchance cling to some of them, may not prove altogether distasteful to his readers. As to others of a lighter character, the only palliation for their publication may be found in the fact that they would be sadly missed by those for whom they were originally written, were they omitted from this metrical medley. They have long been, with many others not herein contained, as House/told Words in the family circle. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.