Poems

Non ulla Musis pagina gratior, Quam quae severis ludicra jungere Novit, fatigatamque nugis Utilibus recreare mentem.
1809.
&c. &c. &c.
MADAM ,
In dedicating the following Poems to your Ladyship, I cannot help regretting that they are not more worthy of such an honour; that I might consequently have used it as an humble mode of expressing my sense of the happy and enlightened hours which I have passed in your Ladyship’s society, and of the polite attentions which I have at various times received from you, and the gallant object of your connubial affection, particularly at the House of British Embassy at Petersburgh, where you afforded to the Ladies of the North a just representation of the dignified virtue, cultivated mind, and attractive beauty, of the higher order of females of your own country.
I have the honour to remain,
Madam,
Your Ladyship’s
Obedient faithful Servant,
Temple. June 1809
This Volume is submitted to the Public with all that diffidence which ought to attend the publication of Verses, many of which were written in the gay and happy era of boyhood, and others in subsequent periods of maturer life, as a relief from more arduous pursuits.
They lay no pretensions to the depth and solidity of the effusions of the Muse in her elevated flights; they are the few wild notes of the simple shepherd, and do not even affect to imitate the rich cadence of the scientific musician.