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to one, who cannot be sensible of the benefit he has received.
But how much soever I may lament the advantages lost, let me remember with gratitude the helps I have obtained: With a single exception, every poem in the ensuing collection has been submitted to the critical sagacity of a gentleman, upon whose skill and candour their author could rely: to publish by advice of friends, has been severely ridiculed, and that too by a poet, who probably without such advice, never made public any verses of his own; in fact, it may not be easily determined who acts with less discretion, the writer who is encouraged to publish his works, merely by the advice of friends whom he consulted, or he who against advice publishes from the sole encouragement of his own opinion: these are deceptions to be carefully avoided and I was happy to escape the latter, by the friendly attentions of the Reverend Richard Turner, Minister of Great Yarmouth. To this gentleman I am indebted, more than I am able to describe, or than he is willing to allow, for the time he has bestowed upon the attempts I have made. He is indeed, the kind of critic for whom every poet should devoutly wish, and the friend whom every man would be happy to acquire; he has taste to discern all that is meritorious, and sagacity to detect whatsoever should be discarded; he gives just the opinion an author's wisdom should covet, however his vanity might prompt him to reject it what altogether to
