This disinterestedness of phrase is in general commensurate with selfishness of feeling: men old and hackneyed in the ways of the world are scrupulous avoiders of Egotism.
Of the following Poems a considerable number are styled "Effusions," in defiance of Churchill's line
"Effusion on Effusion pour away."[1136:2]
I could recollect no title more descriptive of the manner and matter of the Poems—I might indeed have called the majority of them Sonnets—but they do not possess that oneness of thought which I deem indispensible (sic) in a Sonnet—and (not a very honorable motive perhaps) I was fearful that the title "Sonnet" might have reminded my reader of the Poems of the Rev. W. L. Bowles—a comparison with whom would have sunk me below that mediocrity, on the surface of which I am at present enabled to float.
Some of the verses allude to an intended emigration to America on the scheme of an abandonment of individual property.
The Effusions signed C. L. were written by Mr. Charles Lamb, of the India House—independently of the signature their superior merit would have sufficiently distinguished them. For the rough sketch of Effusion XVI, I am indebted to Mr. Favell. And the first half of Effusion XV was written by the Author of "Joan of Arc", an Epic Poem.
Notes attached to a first draft of the Preface to the First Edition [MS. R]
(i)
I cannot conclude the Preface without expressing my grateful acknowledgments to Mr. Cottle, Bristol, for the liberality with which (with little probability I know of remuneration from the sale) he purchased the poems, and the typographical elegance by which he endeavoured to recommend them, (or)—the liberal assistance which he afforded me, by the purchase of the copyright with little probability of remuneration from the sale of the Poems.