But how much soever I may lament the advantages lost, let me remember with gratitude the helps I have obtained: With a single exception, every poem in the ensuing collection has been submitted to the critical sagacity of a gentleman, upon whose skill and candour their Author could rely: to publish by advice of friends, has been severely ridiculed, and that too by a poet, who probably without such advice, never made public any verses of his own; in fact, it may not be easily determined who acts with less discretion, the writer who is encouraged to publish his works, merely by the advice of friends whom he consulted, or he who against advice publishes from the sole encouragement of his own opinion: these are deceptions to be carefully avoided, and I was happy to escape the latter, by the friendly attentions of the Reverend Richard Turner, Minister of Great Yarmouth. To this gentleman I am indebted, more than I am able to describe, or than he is willing to allow, for the time he has bestowed upon the attempts I have made. He is indeed, the kind of critic for whom every poet should devoutly wish, and the friend whom every man would be happy to acquire; he has taste to discern all that is meritorious, and sagacity to detect whatsoever should be discarded; he gives just the opinion an author’s wisdom should covet, however his vanity might prompt him to reject it; what altogether to expunge and what to improve he has repeatedly taught me, and, could I have obeyed him in the latter direction as I invariably have in the former, the public would have found this collection more worthy its attention, and I should have sought the opinion of the critic more void of apprehension.
But whatever I may hope or fear, whatever assistance I have had or have needed, it becomes me to leave my verses to the judgement of the reader, without my endeavour to point out their merit or an apology for their defects: yet as, among the poetical attempts of one who has been for many years a priest, it may seem a want of respect for the legitimate objects of his study, that nothing occurs, unless it be incidentally, of the great subjects of Religion; so it may appear a kind of ingratitude in a beneficed clergyman, that he has not employed his talent (be it estimated as it may) to some patriotic purpose; as in celebrating the unsubdued spirit of his countrymen in their glorious resistance of those enemies, who would have no peace throughout the world, except that which is dictated to the drooping spirit of suffering humanity by the triumphant insolence of military success.
Credit will be given to me I hope, when I affirm that subjects so interesting have the due weight with me, which the sacred nature of the one and the national importance of the other must impress upon every mind, not seduced into carelessness for religion, by the lethargic influence of a perverted philosophy, nor into indifference for the cause of our country, by hyperbolical or hypocritical professions of universal philanthropy; but after many efforts to satisfy myself by various trials on these subjects, I declined all further attempt, from a conviction that I should not be able to give satisfaction to my readers: poetry of religious nature must indeed ever be clogged with almost insuperable difficulty: but there are doubtless to be found, poets who are well qualified to celebrate the unanimous and heroic spirit of our countrymen, and to describe in appropriate colours some of those extraordinary scenes, which have been and are shifting in the face of Europe, with such dreadful celerity; and to such I relinquish the duty.
It remains for me to give the reader, a brief view of those articles in the following collection, which for the first time solicit his attention.
In the Parish-Register, he will find an endeavour once more to describe Village-Manners, not by adopting the notion of pastoral simplicity or assuming ideas of rustic barbarity, but by more natural views of the peasantry, considered as a mixed body of persons sober or profligate, and from hence, in a great measure, contented or miserable. To this more general description are added, the various characters which occur in the three parts of a Register; Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials.
If the Birth of Flattery offer no moral, as an appendage to the fable, it is hoped, that nothing of an immoral, nothing of improper tendency will be imputed to a piece of poetical playfulness; in fact, genuine praise, like all other species of truth, is known by its bearing full investigation: it is what the giver is happy that he can justly bestow, and the receiver conscious that he may boldly accept; but adulation must ever be afraid of enquiry, and must, in proportion to their degrees of moral sensibility,
Be shame “to him that gives and him that takes.”
The verses in p. 211, want a title, nor does the motto, although it gave occasion to them, altogether express the sense of the writer, who meant to observe that some of our best acquisitions, and some of our nobler conquests are rendered ineffectual, by the passing away of opportunity and the changes made by time; an argument that such acquirements and moral habits are reserved for a state of being, in which they may have the uses here denied them.
In the story of Sir Eustace Grey, an attempt is made to describe the wanderings of a mind first irritated by the consequences of error and misfortune, and afterwards soothed by a species of enthusiastic conversion, still keeping him insane: a task very difficult, and if the presumption of the attempt may find pardon, it will not be refused to the failure of the poet. It is said of our Shakespeare, respecting madness:
“In that circle none dare walk but he:”—