truth of Johnson's assertion, that the supplications of a writer never yet reprieved him one moment from obli

vion.

Much has been said of the vanity of authors. Assuredly the person who deliberately offers his productions to the public must, in most instances, suppose that they are worthy of notice, and therefore arrogate some merit to himself, and as all pretensions to merit are received with jealousy, it is not wonderful that the vanity of authors should be a favourite topic of animadversion. But every man, let his affected humility be what it may, has vanity of some kind: and that is surely not the most disgraceful which springs from a love of letters, and is fostered by the desire, however beguiling, of literary distinction.

Having made what few observations I intended with regard to the contents of this volume, may I here be permitted to say something on the subject of my other productions? By the publication of MONTHERMER and of the SACRIFICE OF ISABEL, I long since laid myself open

Preface. . . . 5

to the charge of being a vain author, and what is still worse, an author in vain. I can only plead in extenuation of the confidence in my own abilities implied by the publication of the first of those poems, that youth is the season of rashness, and that it was published when I was very young. I can already see how much I might have improved my chance of future reputation (for I once thought I had a chance), by laying aside those works till time should open my eyes to their faults, and enable me to correct them. MONTHERMER, more especially, was sent to the press too precipitately. "How often,' says the Author of TALES OF THE HALL "has youth been pleaded for deficiencies or redundancies, for the existence of which youth may be an excuse, and yet be none for their exposure." With great deference to such authority, I cannot but consider this inference quite wrong. If youth be an excuse for writing incorrectly, it surely is also an excuse for publishing inconsiderately. The same inexperience that causes the first error superadds the

B

second, and when the plea of youth is received in extenuation of the one, on what possible ground can it be rejected in palliation of the other?

In our courts of justice the misconduct of the young is in general visited with mitigated penalty; and the spendthrift, if a minor, is not made responsible by law for his extravagancies. The offender, as he grows older, if his heart is not quite callous, becomes more and more sensible of the tenderness that was shown him, and abstains from the repetition of offence: and the prodigal, when time has improved his judgment, as well as put him in possession of his inheritance, not only calls in his debts as a point of honour, but remembers that he is still under obligation to society for the benevolent indulgence that protected him in his days of folly, and turns his mind with quickened zeal to useful and respectable exertion. So, I would say, at the bar of literature, juvenile offences against taste should be mildly judged; and their recurrence would be more effectually checked by temperate remonstrance, than by malicious severity or

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outrageous reproach: and so too, would I hope, the extravagancies of thought and diction in the compositions of a young author should not subject him to be dogged by the common bailiffs of criticism, or to have his faculties imprisoned, with Ridicule for their jailor. It may be said that none but those whose faults in composition are balanced by many excellencies can be entitled to such lenity. I do not pray mercy for presumptuous stupidity: but, in all cases, forbearance is at least more generous, and, I should think, not less beneficial, than coarse abuse and vulgar brutality.

As to myself, some kind encouragers no doubt will tell me that mine was vanity indeed, and that I mistook my calling when I strove to be admitted among the servants of the Muses. It may be so: no error is more common. But, even thus, it is a harmless mistake, and one which has afforded me so much happiness that I could not easily be persuaded to regret it. Criticism can indeed convince me that my powers are very limited, and can repress all idle aspirations after fame; but it cannot

subdue the enthusiastic fondness with which from my childhood I have cultivated poetry. Whether the Muse for whom I have attempted to raise up flowers be one of the inspired Sisters, or a deluding Spirit of my own creation, and whether I have made my garden in the genial soil, or on ground remote from the sacred spring, the employment has not been unrewarded. It has often given a livelier and more healthy impulse to enjoyment, and still more frequently been a consolation in those many hours of trouble from which the most fortunate are not exempt.

As to "the dew of praise," I confess that little has fallen on the objects of my labour, except from private, and most frequently partial, sources. I owe but few thanks to Reviewers, and have long ceased to look to them for any thing but censure; I ought not however, individually to complain; for it has pleased them in their wisdom to decide that no soldier can write common sense. Who shall dare to distrust the oracles of Apollo? A Critic in an Edinburgh Magazine, a very paragon of