ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE READER.

ANOTHER Edition of his Poems being called for, the Author is unwilling to present them to the public, still unaccompanied by his acknowledgment for the favourable reception given to the former impressions, he therefore takes this occasion to express the pleasure he derives from the approbation of his readers, and his conviction that he has been treated with much lenity: this he perceives not only in their judgment, who in some degree form or guide the taste of the public, but likewise in the indulgence evinced by his readers in general, who, finding something which they

could approve, would not permit a want of correctness in some parts, or a want of interest in others, to destroy their more favourable opinion.

If it should be remarked that these faults are yet suffered to remain, the Author takes the liberty of observing, that a revisal and correction of the work, such as would satisfy his readers and himself, would cause a greater alteration in the book, than those who already possess it, would consider as justified by the improvement; nor indeed is time allowed at present for such a purpose. The Author likewise indulges a hope that it will be more satisfactory to many of his friends, when informed that he is devoting his leisure to new subjects, than if they considered him as engaged in emendations of the former. Whatever may be the event of these attempts, he dares not flatter himself with so distant a view as any undertaking beyond them must appear; but should he be then unequal to the task of

original composition, he may yet take upon him the lesser efforts his leisure may admit; he may endeavour to make smooth the asperities of negligent versification; he may take off the redundancies of description which has been considered as too elaborate; and he may strive to retouch and amend all such parts in narration or character as now appear with any thing obscure, uninteresting, or incomplete.

Muston, March 1809.

PREFACE.

ABOUT twenty-five years since, was published a poem called The Library; which, in no long time, was followed by two others, The Village, and The Newspaper: These, with a few alterarions and additions, are here reprinted; and are accompanied by a poem of greater length, and several shorter attempts, now, for the first time, before the public; whose reception of them creates in their Author something more than common solicitude, because he conceives that, with the judgment to be formed of these latter productions, upon whatever may be found intrinsically meritorious or defective, there will be united an inquiry into the relative degree of praise or blame, which they may be thought to deserve, when compared with the more early attempts of the same writer.