the arms of genius”—“while others are mad for a few weeds of fame and money!” We hear occasionally of the erratic and unworldly sons of song, but the specimen given below is worth preserving as a curiosity.[2]
- ↑ To you singularly; and if not acceptable, will never be heard of more.
- ↑ “Be so good as to excuse the freedom of a pen that springs forward in the present airy epoch,[1] from the pinion which never cut the fantastic winds of fortune or of fame; a pen guided by the fingers of one who has been so happy as to enjoy himself serenely to the present moment in the pleasing circles of science and the Muses, careless of fame and the volant revolutionary system of interest—unknown to the world individually.
“I could not have ventured, I presume, to have taken upon me the liberty of writing to you under any other idea than that you delighted in the beauteous regions and temples of the Muses, wherein, also, I love to ramble. And, notwithstanding it was with much reluctance (fearful of offending) that I at length mustered courage enough to spring forward in laying this fragment before you. Since I have had the pleasure of knowing your name (which I esteem reciprocally), while being kept back by the potent arm of timidity, I thought, time after time, of sending you pieces, some written in rhyme, others in blank verse, which have since (as customary with most of my writings) been obliterated in the flames. The fire is the general repository of my Muse.
“And now, sir, since I have so far ventured upon your leisure, permit me to leave the piece, of which you have only a part, with these few encomiums, to battle through, and bring me clear from, the storms and shouts of impropriety in so doing.
“Sir, this (namely, the Thunderstorm, containing between eight and nine hundred lines) I have lately written for the purpose of entertaining myself through a secluded hour. But, after pondering over my papers, reflecting on the want of a friendly remark, and entertaining an opinion of the regard which perhaps you may have for a picture of this character, I extracted for you the first canto, wishing to have your opinion thereon. Meantime, I believe I have written, and may venture to recollect with little attention, better pieces, both in rhyme and blank verse; thinking, sir, that my pen is capable of altering what may be found deficient,—not, surely, that I ever care anything for the press, but to entertain a friend so well myself, sometimes with a view reflected from gloom, from the dawn, or from the angry plains of wars; for my delight is in the epic system.
“I cannot wander into a commenting region of redundance, or to darken the paper with a cloud of words does not become me. But, sir, permit
