Page images
PDF
EPUB

original work; but here it can be ma fafety, as every poem in the following co would fingly have procured an autho putation.

They are divided into Devotional, Mo Entertaining, thus comprehending the thr duties of life; that which we owe to C our neighbour, and to ourselves.

In the first part, it must be confeffe English poets have not very much excell that department, namely, the praise of o ker, by which poetry began, and from v deviated by time, we are most faultily de There are one or two, however, particul

[ocr errors]

Deity, by Mr Boyfe; a poem, when came out, that lay for fome time neglec introduced to public notice by Mr. Herv Mr. Fielding: In it the reader will f many striking pictures, and perhaps glow part of that gratitude which seems to ha fpired the writer.

In the moral part I am more copious the fame reason, because our language, c a large number of the kind. Voltaire,

of our poets gives them the preference in moral pieces to the of any other nation; and indeed

no poets h or more precifely determined the rules for conduct in life than ours. In this department the.. fair reader will find the mufe has been follicitous to guide her, not with the allurements of a fyren, but the integrity of a friend.

better fettled the bounds of duty,

In the entertaining part my greatest difficulty was what to reject. The materials lay in fuch plenty, that I was bewildered in my choice; in this cafe then I was folely determined by the tendency of the poem; and where I found one, however well executed, that feemed in the leaft tending to distort the judgment, or inflame the imagination, it was excluded without mercy. I have here and there indeed, when one of particular beauty offered with a few blemishes, lopt off the defects, and thus, like the tyrant, who fitted all strangers to the bed he had prepared for them, I have inferted some, by first adapting them to my plan; we only differ in this, that he mutilated with a bad defign, I from motives of a contrary nature.

4

It

It will be easier to condemn a compilation of this kind, than to prove its inutility. While young ladies are readers, and while their guardians are follicitous that they fhall only read the best books, there can be no danger of a work of this kind's being difagreeable. It offers, in a very fmall compafs, the very flower of our poetry, and that of a kind adapted to the fex fuppofed to be its readers. Poetry is an art, which no young lady can, or ought to be wholly ignorant of The pleasure which it gives, and indeed the neceffity of knowing enough of it to mix in modern converfation, will evince the usefulness of my defign; which is to fupply the highest and the moft innocent entertainment at the fmalleft expence; as the poems in this collection, if fold fingly, would amount to ten times the price of what I am able to afford the prefent.

CON

« PreviousContinue »