When it is confessed that I have less assistance from my friends, and that the appearance of this work is, in a great measure, occasioned by the success of a former, some readers will, I fear, entertain the opinion that the book before them was written in haste, and published without due examination and revisal. Should this opinion be formed, there will doubtless occur many faults which may appear as originating in neglect. Now, readers are, I believe, disposed to treat with more than common severity those writers who have been led into presumption by the approbation bestowed on their diffidence, and into idleness and unconcern, by the praises given to their attention. I am therefore even anxious it should be generally known that sufficient time and application were bestowed upon this work, and by this I mean that no material alteration would be effected by delay; it is true that this confession removes one plea for the errors of the book--want of time, but, in my opinion, there is not much consolation to be drawn by reasonable minds from this resource: if a work fails, it appears to be poor satisfaction when it is observed, that if the author had taken more care, the event had been less disgraceful. When the reader enters into the Poem, he will find the author retired from view, and an imaginary personage brought forward to describe his Borough for him. To him it seemed convenient to speak in the first person; but the inhabitant of a village, in the centre of the kingdom, could not appear in the character of a residing burgess in a large sea-port; and when, with this point, was considered what relations were to be given, what manners delineated, and what situations described, no method appeared to be so convenient as that of borrowing the assistance of an ideal friend. By this means the reader is in some degree kept from view of any particular place; nor will he perhaps be so likely to determine where those persons reside, and what their connexions, who are so intimately known to this man of straw.