PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. THE following Poem, as now presented to the Reader, has been cleared of many of those imperfections which disgraced it in former editions; and some vigour has been added to its feebler parts. Passages may still remain, which the critic may think ought to have been expunged. The only apology offered for their preservation is, that their removal might have been fatal to other more deserving lines, with which they are inseparably connected. The Author does not wish to disguise his sentiment, that the Poem ought originally to have been written with more care. There are many things in it, of which he can still say, scripsisse pudet. But not having the most distant expectation, when he first wrote, that the pages which he penned were to be so generally read, and afterwards acknowledged, he was inattentive in drawing them up. The Poem indeed was committed to the hands of the printer long before it was finished, and had possibly been extended to a much greater length, had not the compositor overtaken the writer, and called for more materials before they were ready. It was this which occasioned the abruptness of the conclusion, and the hasty dismissal of the remaining Poets, whom it was the Author's intention to have pictured seve rally, but for this interruption. THE VILLAGE CURATE. Or Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Mild Autumn with her wain and wheaten sheaf, Let nobler poets sing. Sit thou apart, And on thine own Parnassus sweep the lyre, Applauded Hayley, by the muses taught, Be mine the task to sing the man content, On angry seas to please a poet's gods, At length scarce reach'd the hospitable port. 、 In yonder mansion, rear'd by rustic hands, Turns its warm aspect, yet with blossoms hung Half way between the summit and a brook Luxuriant pasture spreads before his eye Mark the retreat of the scarce-budded hop, |