TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE
LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX,
WITH WHOM THE WRITER HUMBLY DIFFERS ON SOME POINTS,
BUT DEEPLY RESPECTS FOR HIS MOTIVES ON ALL;
GREAT IN OFFICE FOR WHAT HE DID FOR THE WORLD,
GREATER OUT OF IT IN CALMLY AWAITING HIS TIME TO DO MORE;
THE PROMOTER OF EDUCATION; THE EXPEDITER OF JUSTICE;
THE LIBERATOR FROM SLAVERY;
AND (WHAT IS THE RAREST VIRTUE IN A STATESMAN)
ALWAYS A DENOUNCER OF WAR,
These Pages are Inscribed
BY HIS EVER AFFECTIONATE SERVANT,
Jan. 30, 1835. LEIGH HUNT.
ADVERTISEMENT.
This Poem is the result of a sense of duty, which has taken the Author from quieter studies during a great public crisis. He obeyed the impulse with joy, because it took the shape of verse; but with more pain, on some accounts, than he chooses to express. However, he has done what he conceived himself bound to do; and if every zealous lover of his species were to express his feelings in like manner, to the best of his ability, individual opinions, little in themselves, would soon amount to an overwhelming authority, and hasten the day of reason and beneficence.
The measure is regular with an irregular aspect,—four accents in a verse,—like that of Christabel, or some of the poems of Sir Walter Scott:
Càptain Swòrd got ùp one dày—
And the flàg full of hònour, as thòugh it could feèl—
He mentions this, not, of course, for readers in general, but for the sake of those daily acceders to the list of the reading public, whose knowledge of books is not yet equal to their love of them.