example, in the age of Catullus, Terence, and Lucretius, and that of Statius or Claudian;

and in our own country, in the age of Shakespeare and Beaumont and Fletcher, and that

of Donne and Cowley, or Dryden, or Pope. I will not take upon me to determine the

exact import of the promise which, by the act of writing in verse, an Author in the

present day makes to his reader: but it will undoubtedly appear to many persons that I

have not fulfilled the terms of an engagement thus voluntarily contracted. They who have

been accustomed to the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers, if they

persist in reading this book to its conclusion, will, no doubt, frequently have to struggle

with feelings of strangeness and awkwardness: they will look round for poetry, and will

be induced to inquire by what species of courtesy these attempts can be permitted to

assume that title. I hope therefore the reader will not censure me for attempting to state

what I have proposed to myself to perform; and also (as far as the limits of a preface will

permit) to explain some of the chief reasons which have determined me in the choice of

my purpose: that at least he may be spared any unpleasant feeling of disappointment, and

that I myself may be protected from one of the most dishonourable accusations which

can be brought against an Author, namely, that of an indolence which prevents him from

endeavouring to ascertain what is his duty, or, when his duty is ascertained, prevents him

from performing it.

The principal object, then, proposed in these Poems was to choose incidents and

situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was

possible in a selection oflanguage really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw

over them a certain co louring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be

presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and, further, and above all, to make these

incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously,

the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we

associate ideas in a state of excitement. Humble and rustic life was generally chosen,

because, in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which

they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more

emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a

state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and

more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those

elementary feelings, and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more

easily comprehended, and are more durable; and, lastly, because in that condition the

passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. The

language, too, of these men has been adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its

real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust) because such men

hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part oflanguage is

originally derived; and because, from their rank in society and the sameness and narrow

circle of their intercourse, being less under the influence of social vanity, they convey

their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly, such a

language, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent,

and a far more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by

Poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art, in

proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in

arbitrary and capricious habits of expression, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes,

and fickle appetites, of their own creation. 1

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