University of Virginia Library

Since writing the above lines I met with some French stanzas on the same idea, but in what book I cannot recollect: I believed them to be the production of Ségur, but have sought them in his works without success. I remember of them only that the first line was “Plaisir sur un monceau de roses;” that the Torch of Desire played a principal part; and that the Poem consisted of seven or eight stanzas of eight lines each. I am firmly persuaded, that I never saw the French verses previous to my writing the above trifle; and the leading idea is one so obvious, that its having occurred to two persons appears to me by no means improbable. However, if any Reader prefers the belief, that I am indebted to the French Poem for the idea of my own, I have no sort of objection: nor should I have thought it worth the expense of my ink to disclaim a plagiary of so little consequence, if an honour, which has been conferred on my verses, had not stamped them with a value, to which they could never have been entitled by their individual merits. At a particular period when the late Mr. Fox was in the habit of amusing his leisure by composing in various languages, my little Poem was shewn to him by a common friend, the Hon. William Lamb. It happened to strike his fancy, and soon after he wrote to me as follows.

“I take the liberty of sending you an attempt of mine at an imitation of your ‘Pleasure and Desire.’ I have, like other bungling translators, been obliged to double the number of lines in the original, which alone would be fault enough, if there were not plenty of others; but at any rate, my having turned it into my favorite language, will serve as a proof, how much I am delighted with the thing.”