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.
D. HUMPHREYS,
City of Washington, in the Territory of Columbia,
January 4th, 1803.