PREFACE.

WE have ventured to name this pictorial and literary treasury,

ROSES AND HOLLY. The rose-the queen of flowers-is significant of summer, of beauty, and of love: the holly-the evergreen of happiness—which cheers the heart through the gloom of winter, and shadows round the Christmas hearth pleasant memories, and feelings of friendship, of comfort, and of gaiety. The two ends of the year meet in these emblematic flowers; and, with a liberty which we hope will not be too closely questioned, we have chosen them as the appellation of our Gift Book for all the Year.

In preparing ROSES AND HOLLY, the idea of the editor has been to depart in some measure from the beaten track of his predecessors. Instead of the classified selections and special subjects which are usually chosen for Gift Books, and to which all due credit for excellence of taste and propriety of judgment is heartily awarded, it seemed to him that a miscellaneous collection of art and literary gems, grouped together "in most admired disorder," would form a volume of interest and value.

The main object kept in view in the preparation of ROSES AND HOLLY has been to secure variety in the selection; while literary

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merit, it need scarcely be added, has not been overlooked in the articles chosen. In the volume will be found poetry for the imaginative, and prose for the matter-of-fact; matter serious and didactic for the reflective; mirth for the merry: in the words of the dramatist

The illustrations which adorn ROSES AND HOLLY have been specially drawn and engraved for the volume; and among them will be found original examples of several of the most distinguished Scottish artists. The entire artistic and mechanical work has been executed in the Northern Capital; and the publisher puts it forth with some degree of confidence, as a favourable example of art and typography.

EDINBURGH, November 1866.