PREFACE.
IN submitting to the public eye the following collection, I have not only to combat the difficulties that writers of verse generally encounter, but, may incur the charge of presumption, for obtruding myself on the world, when, without doubt, I might be, at my age, more usefully employed. These productions are the fruits of the lighter hours of a young man, who has lately completed his nineteenth year. As they bear the internal evidence of a boyish mind, this is, perhaps, unnecessary information. Some few were written during the disadvantages of illness, and depression of spirits; under the former influence, "Childish Recollections," in particular, were composed. This consideration, though it cannot excite the
