Читать книгу Ismael; an oriental tale. With other poems онлайн

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It will not, therefore, be presuming too much, to hope that these Poems may contain enough to draw from such as value the display of early talents, a favourable reception; and that the Author, under such encouragement, when his taste is more matured, will perfect the produce of his youthful industry, and by diligence add to the stores of a mind formed by nature to accumulate and decorate them—there is only left for me to say,

His saltem accumulem donis.

ΦΙΛΌΜΟΥΣΟΣ.

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Notwithstanding my friend has said so much and so flattering to myself, in his Preface, yet the diffidence and the anxiety which ever accompany a first attempt, particularly at so early an age, urge me to add a few words, however superfluous they may appear. An apology is indeed, perhaps, always requisite for an intrusion on the public, and I cannot, therefore, refrain from offering one for some of the Poems which are inferior to the rest. They were written when but a child—they were the first faint dawnings of poetic enthusiasm,—and that sense of integrity, which should accompany every action, prevented my now altering them, in any material respect. I expressly state the age at which they were written, and I think it but a duty to the public, that they should actually be written at that age. For the same reason, therefore, and not from any arrogant vanity, I have been particularly careful that no other hand should have polished, or improved them.