And perhaps nothing could make it worth my while to
own what are really so, but to avoid the imputation of so many dull and
immoral things as, partly by malice, and partly by ignorance, have been
ascribed to me. I must further acquit myself of the presumption of
having lent my name to recommend any miscellanies or works of other men;
a thing I never thought becoming a person who has hardly credit enough
to answer for his own.
In this office of collecting my pieces, I am altogether uncertain
whether to look upon myself as a man building a monument, or burying the
dead. If time shall make it the former, may these poems (as long as they
last) remain as a testimony that their author never made his talents
subservient to the mean and unworthy ends of party or self-interest; the
gratification of public prejudices or private passions; the flattery of
the undeserving or the insult of the unfortunate. If I have written
well, let it be considered that 'tis what no man can do without good
sense,--a quality that not only renders one capable of being a good
writer, but a good man. And if I have made any acquisition in the
opinion of any one under the notion of the former, let it be continued
to me under no other title than that of the latter.
But if this publication be only a more solemn funeral of my remains, I
desire it may be known that I die in charity and in my senses, without
any murmurs against the justice of this age, or any mad appeals to
posterity.
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