"The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, WITH NOTES. LONDON: E. CHURTON, 26, HOLLES STREET. 1849. TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. MADAM, I MUST Confess that it yields me pleasure to be enabled to assert that I do not affix your name to these pages merely for the sake of adorning them. Venial as the offence might appear to many, I should not consider myself justified in making such free use of another's eminence and fame, if I had no better excuse than the expediency of so doing. Yet, strangely enough, in urging my only plea-gratitude for the cordial approbation with which you have cheered the humbler flights of my muse I take a still greater liberty with the high literary reputation which is so deservedly yours; for I may thus lead others to disparage your judgment, and suppose that your praises have fostered the vanity which has inspired me to make this adventurous essay. But your ladyship never advised me to attempt an epic; and the sin of presumption must therefore rest upon my own head. Indeed, if I fail, I can fairly accuse nothing but my own incapacity. The subject I have chosen is happy; for it is one which few poets have adopted, and which none have made their own. It has, from my childhood, been my favourite study; my mind is deeply impressed with its various aspects, and, I think, sufficiently prepared for its illustration. Nothing wants, then, but the "one thing needful;" and whether I possess that or not, it is |
