University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

WHEN an author first appears before the public in the walks of literature, and claims the favourable attention of his readers, he possesses not that talisman, the magic of a name, which often is sufficient to dazzle the eye of the mind with beauties, and blind it to the imperfections of the production. The beginning has proved the end of many an effort, which, if fostered, might have led to honour and to fame. This has been the grand obstacle to the flights of American genius; and was an insurmountable bar, till the authors of the Sketch-Book, Yamoyden, Ontwa, and others, by melodious and graceful prose, and strains which flowed with the ease and tenderness of the Mantuan bard, seized upon the mind, and engaged the fancy of those, who had learnt from the critics of a trans-atlantic isle, that dulness and Bæotian stupidity had transfered their residence to the sluggish minds of Americans.

The author of the following poem would not invite a comparison with the above-named productions nor would he send his own forth to the remarks of the world, without saying something of the execution.

The fall of Constantinople was one of the most important events, both in its immediate, and distant, consequences, which affected the safety and welfare of Christendom in the fifteenth century. Though the attentive observer of events, without being gifted with prophesy, could not but foretell the dissolution of the

empire of the Romans, the actual occurrence of such an event spread universal sorrow and regret throughout Europe.

After the lapse of almost four centuries, the terrible scenes of the siege, and still more awful consequences which followed it, cannot command that sympathetic feeling, which is immediately excited, when novelty awakens the mind, unwilling ever to look back, through the vista of ages, on preceding woes.

The author has, therefore, given indulgence to fancy, seized upon traditions, and yielded free scope to feeling and to passion, while at the same time the poem is grounded upon the faith of history. In truth, fancy causes the difference between history and poesy; for a mere versification of a known transaction recorded in history, would no more constitute a poem, than a marble image could be asserted to be a man. It is imagination soaring through creation, indulging in every object which delights the soul, or improves the heart; exhausting worlds and then commanding new; which gives a zest to the strains of the poet.

Granting this indulgence, the author has endeavoured to blend, as much as possible, the tender with the stern, the calm and humble with the impassionate and proud, the flush of victory with the resignation of its victims. The details of war and carnage are seldom agreeable to the public at any time; much less in a time of peace and general tranquility. And such minute circumstances as constitute the principal misery of war, and most poignantly affect the mind of the reader, are least of all acceptable in a poem, whose tendency is to relax, not invigorate—to please, not to excite impassioned feelings. The author hopes that the above observation will be found applicable to the production which is now submitted, with respect, to the impartial judgment of an indulgent public. And, if the scenes, which attended and succeeded the overthrow of the capital of the Roman Empire; the contrast of Christian and Ottoman manners; the effeminate luxury

and supine indulgence, and utter destitution of that heroic courage, which was a bulwark stronger than walls of iron to the Roman republic, of the one; and that inhuman cruelty, frantic fanaticism, and barbarous vengeance, which overthrew every thing precious or valuable, of the other; shall appear, as undoubtedly they will, to want that vividness, energetic description, and sublimity which attend the plastic pencil of a master in Parnassian mysteries; the author requests his readers to consider that a youth of eighteen (the age at which the following poem was written,) cannot at once soar to Virgilian majesty, nor on the wings of rapid thought, delight, transport and awe.

Cultivation, ever necessary in every part of the literary course, is absolutely imperative to those who glow with fancy's fire; and, to produce cultivation, encouragement from the public is equally necessary.

Juvenum animi florent modo nati vigentque.

But without this favour, none,

Meum respectet, ut ante, amorem,
Qui illius culpa cecidit; velut prati
Ultimi flos, praetereunte postquam
Tactus aratro est.