PREFACE. MR. POPE, in his Essay on Criticism, has asserted, that the "last and greatest art" of literary composition is the "art to blot." With a full conviction of the difficulty and the duty of this art, the Author of the following pages ventures to insist, even in contradiction to this high authority, that there is, in writing, an art still more rare, still more slowly learned, still more reluctantly adopted-the art to stop. But when shall this difficult but valuable art be resorted to? At what precise moment shall we begin to reduce so wholesome a theory to practice? It may be answered-at the period when time may reasonably be suspected to have extinguished the small particle of fire which the fond conceit of the author might tempt him to fancy he once possessed. But how is he to ascertain this critical moment of extinction? His own eyes, always dim in the discernment of his own faults, may have become quite blind. His friends are too timid, or too tender, to hazard the perilous intimation. If his enemies, always kindly ready to perform this neglected office of friendship, proclaim the unwelcome truth, they are probably not believed. The public, then, who are neither governed by the misleadings of affection, nor influenced by the hostility of hatred, would seem to be the proper arbiters, the court from whose decision there should lie no appeal. But if, through generous partiality to good intentions, or habitual kindness to long acquaintance, that public, instead of checking, continue to cherish, the efforts which they have been accustomed to indulge, and the author be tempted still to persist in writing, may he not be in imminent danger of wearing out the good-humor of his protectors, by a successive reproduction of himself-of abusing their kindness, by the vapid exhibition of an exhausted intellect? May the writer of the following pages, without incurring too heavily the imputation of vanity, be permitted to observe that there is a sense in which the favor she has uniformly experienced is honorable to that public who have conferred it? Their indulgence has never been purchased by flattery; their support has never been a payment for softening errors that require, not to be qualified, but combated; has never been a reward for incense offered to the passions, for sentiments accommodated to whatever appeared to be defective in any reigning opinion, in any prevailing practice. They have received with approbation unvarnished truth, and even borne with patience bold remonstrance. In return, she is willing to hope, that she has paid them a more substantial respect, by this hazardous sincerity, than if she had endeavored to conciliate their regard by indirect arts and unworthy adulation. Next to injuring any reader, her deepest regret would be to offend him; but when the questions agitated are of momentous concern, would not disguising truth, or palliating error, be, as to the intention, the worst of injuries, however powerless the writer might be in making a bad intention effectively mischievous? Sincere, therefore, as would be her concern, if any stroke of her pen Should tend to make one worthy man her foe, yet the feeling of having contributed to mislead a single youthful mind, by the suppression of a right, or the establishment of a false principle, would be more painful than any censures which an imprudent honesty might draw down upon her. If the humble work now presented to the world be of little use to the reader, the writer is willing to hope it may not be altogether unprofitable to herself. If it induce her more strenuously to cultivate the habit of rendering speculation. practical, if it should dispose her to adopt more cordially what she is so prompt to recommend, she will then have turned to some little account the hours of pain and suffering under which it has been composed. She does not, however, absurdly presume to plead pain and sufferings as an apology for defects in a work which she was at liberty not to have undertaken; for, with whatever other evils sickness may be chargeable, it imposes on no one the necessity of adding one more to the countless catalogue of indifferent Books. BARLEY-WOOD, December 10, 1812. AS A SLIGHT MEMORIAL OF Sincere Esteem and Cordial Friendship THIS LITTLE SKETCH OF CHRISTIAN MORALS IS, WITH STRICT PROPRIETY, INSCRIBED TO THE REV. THOMAS GISBORNE, OF YOXALL LODGE; In his Writings and in his Life, A CONSISTENT CHRISTIAN MORALIST. |