University of Virginia Library

ORIGINAL PREFACE On the first Publication of the two following Poems, which were written when the Author was Minister in Spain.

Should more defects or imperfections of style be discerned, in such poems of this collection as have never before been printed, than were expected, the writer may be permitted to allege his long absence from his country in mitigation of the severity of animadversion. Since the summer after our revolutionary war was ended (the time of his first leaving this land of his nativity) he has remained abroad, with some intermissions, nearly fourteen years. During the greater part of that period, and particularly for more than eleven of the last years, he has heard very little of his native language spoken, either in his own family, or the societies which he frequented. Almost the whole of his longest productions in verse were composed in Europe. The poems “on the Happiness of America,” and “the Future Glory of the United States,” were written principally in Paris and London; that “on our Industry” in Lisbon; and those “on the Love of Country,” and “the Death of General Washington,” in Madrid.

In conformity to the plan which has been prosecuted in the preceding sheets, it is hoped that the systematic intention of suggesting means for securing the blessings of our revolution, and enlarging the limits of our felicity, will be discovered in the two subsequent poems; the one containing a dissertation on, and the other an exemplification of, real Patriotism.

While the author resided in Spain, in the course of the late European war, he was too incessantly engaged in protecting or reclaiming the ships and cargoes of his fellow citizens concerned in navigation and commerce, to have much leisure for belles lettres.

Few fields can be more thorny than that of remonstrance and reclamation. There the seeds of genius could little more than vegetate. Even plants transferred from the most fertile seminaries could find nothing congenial to foster their growth. No blossoms of wit could flourish amidst the sterility of official notes. In effect, the dryness of the diplomatic soil, absorbing the nutrition from the flowers of imagination, might well be supposed unfavourable to poetical productions. The interruption of intercourse with other countries prevented emulation from being excited by new publications and learned travellers. The pursuit of elegant literature was thus interrupted. Yet some species of relaxation from business was necessary. Notwithstanding these discouragements, poetry appeared the most eligible to the writer. He indulged feeling possibly more than he consulted discretion. But if he wrote rather carelessly to please himself in the first instance, when he contemplated consigning his writings to the press, he would not treat his readers with so little consideration as not to attempt to gratify them, by giving his performances all the correctness in his power. It is not meant to be insinuated that the literary appetite has been so pampered, as to become depraved or fastidious. But at a time when, in the British dominions and the United States, every poet who aspires to celebrity, strives to approach the perfection of Pope in the sweetness of his versification, it is conceived the public taste is too much accustomed to be regaled with such delicacies, to relish any poetical entertainment which is totally destitute of them. How far the choice and arrangement of materials for the entertainment now provided, be indicative of true or false taste, must be left to that of critics to determine.

Whether a poet composes from enthusiasm or with meditation, the art of animating and keeping alive the curiosity of his readers is certainly least of all to be neglected. Nothing can compensate for the want, for without it his works will not be read. To create an interest, is to command attention. To make descriptions or reflections not merely entertaining, but even intelligible, perspicuity is indispensably requisite. But without distinct perceptions, clear ideas could not exist for communication. We cannot give to others that which we have not ourselves. Without luminous comprehension, and lucid order, what can be expected but obscurity and confusion? Without spirit and intelligence, what but apathy and tediousness? He who feels not his subject strongly, can never rouse the sensibility of his readers. The writer has endeavoured to prevent his mental images, whatever they were, from being distorted by abstract phraseology, or disguised

by foreign idiom. In attempting to make the clearness of his style in a degree the mirror of his mind, he was solicitous to shun turgid diction, brilliant antithesis, unnatural conceits, affected figures, forced epithets, and, in general, all factitious ornament. Nor was he less anxious to avoid mistaking and admitting vulgarity for simplicity. He wished not to degrade the wonderful and glorious, though ordinary and regular displays of Creation and Providence, in the natural and moral world, by handling the subjects with too much familiarity. He believed that the use of the most proper words, in their proper places, without the intervention of the undefinable mens divinior, could not constitute the higher species of poesy. Pleased with the charms of novelty, and delighted with whatever is elevated, beautiful, elegant, lovely, and excellent in the works of the ancients and moderns, he should be happy to be found, in his own, to have aimed at originality without rashness, and imitation without servility.

The same diffidence of the writer in hazarding an opinion on his own productions, and confidence in the candour of his readers, which induce him to offer his hitherto unpublished poems with these remarks and explanations, preclude him from presuming to anticipate their judgment. An avowal of his objects and motives, as developed in the history of his compositions, will, perhaps, serve to diminish the rigour and annihilate the asperity of criticism.