I have collected in this Volume the productions of very distant periods. The lyric pieces were written in earlier youth. The poems addressed to the heart and the understanding, are those of my maturer judgment. The Inscriptions will be found to differ from the Greek simplicity of Akenside's in the point that generally concludes them. The Sonnets were written first, or I would have adopted a different title, and avoided the shackle of rhyme, and the confinement to fourteen lines.
December, 1796.
