This is a book of poems by R.W. Buchanan. He dedicates the book to William Hepworth Dixon and writes the following in the first pages:

MY DEAR DIXON,—This book is inscribed to you; and lest you should ask wherefore, I will refresh your memory. Seven years ago, when I was an ambitious lad in Scotland, and when the north-easter was blowing coldly on me, you sent me such good words as cheered and warmed me. You were one of two (the gentle, true, and far-seeing George Henry Lewes was the other) who first believed that I was fitted for noble efforts. Since then you have known me better, and abode by your first hope. Nor have you failed to exhibit the virtue, not possessed by one writer in a hundred, of daring to express publicly your confidence in an unacknowledged author. One word concerning the present volume. “London Poems” are the last of what I may term my “poems of probation,”—wherein I have fairly hinted what I am trying to assimilate in life and thought. However much my method may be confounded with the methods of other writers, I am sure to get quartered (to my cost, perhaps) on my own merits by and by. Accept these poems,—given under a genuine impulse, and not merely in compliment. Of your fine qualities I will say nothing. Your candour may offend knaves and your reticence mislead fools; but be happy in your goodness, and in the loving homage of those dearest to you.—And believe me,

                                                                                               Always your Friend,

                                                                                                                       ROBERT BUCHANAN.

 BEXHILL, SUSSEX, June 1866.

[Notes: William Hepworth Dixon (1821-1870), historian and travel-writer, was the editor of the Athenæum from 1853 to 1869.]