то SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. DEAR SIR, I CAN have no expectations in an addrefs of this kind, either to add to your reputation, or to establish my own. You can gain nothing from my admiration, as I am ignorant of that art in which you are faid to excel; and I may lofe much by the feverity of your judgment, as few have a jufter tafte in poetry than you. Setting intereft therefore afide, to which I never paid much attention, I must be indulged at prefent in following my affections. The only dedication I ever made was to my brother, because I loved him better than most other men. He is fince dead. Permit me to infcribe this poem to you. How far you may be pleased with the verfification and mere mechanical parts of this attempt, I do not pretend to enquire: but I know you will object T 56 DEDICATIO N. (and indeed feveral of our beft and wifeft friends concur in the opinion) that the depopulation it deplores is no where to be feen, and the diforders it laments are only to be found in the poet's own imagination. To this I can scarce make any other anfwer than that I fincerely believe what I have written; that I have taken all poffible pains, in my country excurfions, for these four or five years paft, to be certain of what I alledge, and that all my views and inquiries have led me to believe those miseries real, which I here attempt to difplay. But this is not the place to enter into an inquiry, whether the country be depopulating, or not; the difcuffion would take up much room, and I fhould prove myself, at best, an indifferent politician, to tire the reader with a long preface, when I want his unfatigued attention to a long poem, In regretting the depopulation of the country, I inveigh against the increase of our luxuries; and here also I expect the fhout of modern politicians against me. For twenty or thirty years paft, it has been the fashion to confider luxury as one of the greatest national advantages; and all the wif dom of antiquity in that particular, as erroneous. Still, however, I muft remain a profeffed ancient on that head, and continue to think thofe luxuries prejudicial to ftates by which fo many vices are introduced, and fo many kingdoms have been undore, 1 |