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expunge and what to improve he has repeatedly taught me, and, could I have obeyed him in the latter direction as I invariably have in the former, the public would have found this collection more worthy its attention, and I should have sought the opinion of the critic more void of apprehension.
But whatever I may hope or fear, whatever assistance I have had or have needed, it becomes me to leave my verses to the judgement of the reader, without my endeavour to point out their merit or an apology for their defects: yet as, among the poetical attempts of one who has been for many years a priest, it may seem a want of respect for the legitimate objects of his study, that nothing occurs, unless it be incidentally, of the great subjects of Religion; so it may appear a kind of ingratitude in a beneficed clergyman, that he has not employed his talent (be it estimated as it may) to some patriotic purpose; as in celebrating the unsubdued spirit of ills countrymen in their glorious resistance of those enemies, who would have no peace throughout the world, except that which is dictated to the drooping spirit of suffering humanity by the triumphant insolence of military success.
Credit will be given to me I hope, when I affirm that subjects so interesting have the due weight with me, which the sacred nature of the one an4 the national importance of the other must impress upon every mind, not seduced into carelessness for religion, by the lethargic influence of a perverted
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