A FEW WORDS PREFATORY. To the high and honoured title of POET, in the legitimate sense of the term, the writer of the fol lowing pages makes no pretensions. Engaged, from his earliest youth, upwards, in a daily round of active mercantile pursuits, the "Trifles" which he thus offers to the public-the offspring of moments stolen from the desk of the banking-house and the countingroom-can, at the best, only entitle him to the more humble name of Versifyer. Conscious of his want of those qualifications which might justify him in seeking to enter the inner temple of the sacred Nine, he has but ventured to loiter around the base of the flowery mountain; contenting himself with occasionally gleaning-here, it may be, a weed, and there, perchance, a flower-from such by-nooks and out of the way corners of the field of Fancy, as had been passed over by the more worthy and accredited gatherers of the golden-hued harvests of Parnassus. From these gleanings (scattered freely from time to time, as gathered the weeds with the flowers,) he has been led thus to attempt to cull a few of the latter, with the hope-vain and fruitless it may be— of weaving them into a simple garland, with which to grace the brow of the young and growing literature of the West. Whether in this attempt-hastily deter mined, and entered upon with no previous preparation, and in the midst of other daily occupations, which gave but little opportunity for that thorough rejection of the weeds, and careful pruning of the flowers, so necessary to set off an indifferent boquet to advantage-more of the one than of the other shall appear to have been bound together in this simple wreath, it must be for others now to determine. With thus much of preliminary, the author now casts his little garland upon the stream of popular favour, to sink or swim, as its own weight and the laws of gravity may determine. CINCINNATI, OCTOBER 1845. |