May Day with the Muses

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charles Bidwell and Distributed
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Author of the Farmer's Boy, Rural Tales, &c.
LONDON: Printed for the Author: and for Baldwin Chadock, and Joy
1822
Printed by Thomas Davison, Whitefriars.
I am of opinion that Prefaces are very useless things in cases like the present, where the Author must talk of himself, with little amusement to his readers. I have hesitated whether I should say any thing or nothing; but as it is the fashion to say something, I suppose I must comply. I am well aware that many readers will exclaim— It is not the common practice of English baronets to remit half a year's rent to their tenants for poetry, or for any thing else. This may be very true; but I have found a character in the Rambler, No. 82, who made a very different bargain, and who says, And as Alfred received the tribute of the Welsh in wolves' heads, I allowed my tenants to pay their rents in butterflies, till I had exhausted the papilionaceous tribe. I then directed them to the pursuit of other animals, and obtained, by this easy method, most of the grubs and insects which land, air, or water can supply………I have, from my own ground, the longest blade of grass upon record, and once accepted, as a half year's rent for a field of wheat, an ear, containing more grains than had been seen before upon a single stem.
I hope my old Sir Ambrose stands in no need of defence from me or from any one; a man has a right to do what he likes with his own estate. The characters I have introduced as candidates may not come off so easily; a cluster of poets is not likely to be found in one village, and the following lines, written by my good friend T. Park. Esq. of Hampstead, are not only true, but beautifully true, and I cannot omit them.
August, 1790.
The bard, who paints from rural plains, Must oft himself the void supply Of damsels pure and artless swains, Of innocence and industry:
For sad experience shows the heart Of human beings much the same; Or polish'd by insidious art, Or rude as from the clod it came.