For to treat the subject with the clearness and coherence,
of which I believe it susceptible, it would be necessary to give a
full account of the present state of the public taste in this country,
and to determine how far this taste is healthy or depraved; which
again could not be determined, without pointing out, in what manner
language and the human mind act and react on each other, and without
retracing the revolutions not of literature alone but likewise of
society itself. I have therefore altogether declined to enter
regularly upon this defence; yet I am sensible, that there would be
some impropriety in abruptly obtruding upon the Public, without a
few words of introduction, Poems so materially different from those,
upon which general approbation is at present bestowed.
It is supposed, that by the act of writing in verse an Author makes
a formal engagement that he will gratify certain known habits of
association, that he not only thus apprizes the Reader that certain
classes of ideas and expressions will be found in his book, but that
others will be carefully excluded.
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