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philosophy, nor into indifference for the cause of our country, by hyperbolical or hypocritical professions of universal philanthropy; but after many efforts to satisfy myself by various trials on these subjects, I declined all further attempt, from a conviction that I should not be able to give satisfaction to my readers: poetry of religious nature must indeed ever be clogged with almost insuperable difficulty: but there are doubtless to be found, poets who are well qualified to celebrate the unanimous and heroic spirit of our countrymen, and to describe in appropriate colours some of those extraordinary scenes, which have been and are shifting in the face of Europe, with such dreadful celerity; and to such I relinquish the duty.
It remains for me to give the reader a brief view of those articles in the following collection, which for the first time solicit his attention.
In the Parish Register, he will find an endeavour once more to describe Village Manners, not by adopting the notion of pastoral simplicity or assuming ideas of rustic barbarity, but by more natural views of the peasantry, considered as a mixed body of persons sober or profligate, and from hence, in a great measure, contented or miserable. To this more general description are added, the various characters which occur in the three parts of a Register: Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials.
If the Birth of Flattery offer no moral, as an appendage to the fable, it is hoped, that nothing
