Hours
OF
Childhood
AND
OTHER POEMS
Montreal
PUBLISHED BY A. BOWMAN
AUGUST
1820.
A. Bourne, Lc.
HOURS OF CHILDHOOD,
AND
OTHER POEMS.
Hath duties which require the vigorous hand
Of stedfast application, but which leave
No deep improving trace upon the mind.
But be the day another’s;—let it pass!
The night’s my own!—
Kirke White.
MONTREAL:
PUBLISHED BY A. BOWMAN.
........
1820.
PREFACE.
IT is a fact universally allowed, that few authors are so totallyindifferent to the stamp which their writings may bear in the minds ofthe public, as to feel no anxiety concerning their success; and tocontemplate with perfect composure, the prospect of a critical analysisof their productions, in which, each blemish is to be exposed to themost rigid censure.
No writer is entirely exempt from this doubtful solicitude—even thosewho have raised themselves above the quibblings of fire-sidecommentators, and are only read to be admired, have their moments offear;—the opinions of the public may change; critics may condemn, andtheir names may be tarnished by a failure.
Since then, those who possess every classical requisite for poetical{iv}excellence; who are blessed with time, retirement, and an access to thewritings of all nations, and ages; whose minds are cheered in theirpursuits, by a solid hope of success, founded on the remembrance offormer approbation, cannot altogether confide in their infallibility. Itwill not be doubted, that a youth, unlettered, and unlearned, who in hisfirst essay has been debarred all those advantages which are consideredalmost indispensible in the pursuit of literary distinction—shouldappear before the public with the utmost diffidence; fearful that thepursuit which has given him employment in his midnight hours, and addeda zest to his short period of leisure, should reflect discredit upon hisauthorship.
The writer of Hours of Childhood, far from enjoying “Poetic leisure,”has, from the age of thirteen, filled a situation which requires “thevigorous hand of stedfast application,” and, which has left little time{v}for studious improvement: But his work is to appear on the same stage,with the productions of the man of science; and to be judged by the sa