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have been tempted by the liberal offers of my bookseller, is an excuse which can hope for but little indulgence from the critic; yet I own that, without this seasonable inducement, these poems very possibly would never have been submitted to the world. The glare of publication is too strong for such imperfect productions: they should be shown but to the eye of friendship, in that dim light of privacy, which is as favourable to poetical as to female beauty, and serves as a veil for faults, while it enhances every charm which it displays. Besides, this is not a period for the idle occupations of poetry, and times like the present require talents more active and more useful. Few have now the leisure to read such trifles, and I sincerely regret that I have had the leisure to write them.

EPISTLE I.

ΤΟ

LORD VISCOUNT STRANGFORD.

ΤΟ

LORD VISCOUNT STRANGFORD.

ABOARD THE PHAETON FRIGATE, OFF THE AZORES,

BY MOONLIGHT.

SWEET Moon! if like Crotona's sage, *

By any spell my hand could dare

To make thy disk its ample page,

And write my thoughts, my wishes there;
How many a friend, whose careless eye
Now wanders o'er that starry sky,
Should smile, upon thy orb to meet
The recollection, kind and sweet,
The reveries of fond regret,
The promise, never to forget,

And all my heart and soul would send

To many a dear-loved, distant friend!

*

Pythagoras; who was supposed to have a power of writing upon the moon by the means of a magic mirror.-See BAYLE, art. Pythag.

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