Page VOLUME III. THE PICCOLOMINI, OR THE FIRST PART OF WALLENSTEIN 249 PREFACE.. COMPOSITIONS resembling those of the present volume are not unfrequently condemned for their querulous Egotism. But Egotism is to be condemned then only when it offends against time and place, as in a History or an Epic Poem. To censure it in a Monody or Sonnet is almost as absurd as to dislike a circle for being round. Why then write Sonnets or Monodies? Because they give me pleasure when perhaps nothing else could. After the more violent emotions of Sorrow, the mind demands amusement, and can find it in employment alone: but full of its late sufferings, it can endure no employment not in some measure connected with them. VOL. I. To the First and Second Editions. Forcibly to B |