PREFACE.

GEBIR was written in my twentieth year. Many parts were first composed in Latin; and I doubted in which language to complete it. I had lost the manuscript: finding it four years after in a box of letters, I reduced it nearly to half, inserting a few verses in some places to give it its proportions. Count Julian is rather a dialogue than a drama, and never was offered to the stage. The Poems on the Dead occupy but little of the reader's time, and are placed here to gratify my feelings.

There are many things in this volume of
little weight and value: the only reason why
they are collected is, that more, and worse,
either written by me in youth, or with equal
idleness afterward, may never be raked together
by the avarice of venal editors and bankrupt
publishers; such as have lately disinterred the
rankest garbage of Swift and Dryden, who had
already left too much aboveground. It is only
the wretchedest of poets that wish all they ever
wrote to be remembered: some of the best
would be willing to lose the most.