OR, IDA OF ATHENS. BY MISS OWENSON, AUTHOR OF THE WILD IRISH GIRL," THE << NOVICE OF "Nul doute qu'on ne s'elevat aux plus grands choses si l'on avoit Helvetius, Discours 2d, p. 153. "Si le desir et meme l'espoir de voir un jour la liberté rendu aux De Choiseuil, Voyage Pittoresque, p. 8. * IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER-ROW. TO THE PUBLIC. IT would be offering the last degree of violence to feelings which the liveliest gratitude has animated, were I again to obtrude myself on public notice without betraying my sensibility to that public indulgence by which I have been already so highly honoured. I have, indeed, long and deeply felt it; I have been silent, but not unmoved; and, more touched than dazzled, the kindness which made me happy made me not confident. Oh! no: I mistook not for a moment the encouragement so seldom denied to youth and woman, for the triumph decreed to superior genius, or the plaudits that wait upon successful talent; and while it awakened my ambition, it strengthened not my timidity; while it stimulated me to deserve applause, it rendered me doubtful of obtaining it; and the careless confidence with which I gave the first wild effusions of my fancy to the "garish eye of day," when I was equally the world unknowing as the world unknown, deserts me now, when, overwhelmed by the kindness that was meant to support, anxiety gives birth to apprehension, and I tremble to disappoint the expectation public partiality may have deigned to cherish in my favour: an expectation that sweetly flatters, while it awfully intimidates. to At once indolent and volatile in |