While composing the first-published of these Poems, the Author was honoured with the notice and assisted by the advice of the _Right Honourable_ EDMUND BURKE: Part of it was written in his presence, and the whole submitted to his judgement; receiving, in its progress, the benefit of his correction: I hope therefore to obtain pardon of the reader, if I eagerly seize the occasion, and, after so long a silence, endeavour to express a grateful sense of the benefits I have received from this Gentleman, who was solicitous for my more essential interests, as well as benevolently anxious for my credit as a writer. I will not enter upon the subject of his extraordinary abilities; it would be vanity, it would be weakness in me to believe that I could make them better known or more admired than they now are; but of his private worth, of his wishes to do good, of his affability and condescension; his readiness to lend assistance when he knew it was wanted, and his delight to give praise where he thought it was deserved; of these I may write with some propriety: all know that his powers were vast, his acquirements various, and I take leave to add, that he applied them, with unremitted attention, to those objects which he believed tended to the honour and welfare of his country; but it may not be so generally understood that he was ever assiduous in the more private duties of a benevolent nature, that he delighted to give encouragement to any promise of ability and assistance to any appearance of desert; to what purposes he employed his pen, and with what eloquence he spake in the senate, will be told by many, who yet may be ignorant of the solid instruction as well as the fascinating pleasantry found in his common conversation, among his friends, and his affectionate manners, amiable disposition, and zeal for their happiness, which he manifested in the hours of retirement with his family.