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EDWARD AND MARY;

OR,

THE FATAL CONTRACT.

A BALLAD.

PREFACE.

"In ev'ry work regard the writer's end;
"Since none can compass more than they intend."

NOTWITHSTANDING there is a numerous class of readers who never give themselves the trouble of perusing those prefatory remarks without which very few publications are presented to the public, as being a painful and unnecessary task, they are in general of the utmost consequence to the work introduced; as they not only explain the author's motives for undertaking it, but they generally throw a considerable degree of light upon the subjects that are discussed in the work, and are consequently of so much importance to the wellbeing of the publication, that no reader ought to spare himself the pain or the pleasure of such a task.

Perhaps no writer ever stood in greater need of elucidatory remarks being prefixed to his performance, than I do on this present occasion.

No doubt many very well-intentioned and sober members of the community may, upon the discovery that I have been given o rhyming, cast

their eyes most devoutly toward heaven, and, amid the tumult of far-fetched and deeply heaved sighs, groan out in the fervency of their spirit some such emphatic exclamation as the following: "What! is this petty writer turned poet? Upon my word, things are come to a mighty pretty pass indeed now-a-days, when we are to be teazed and worried by the bungling lines of every obscure writer!"

As there are many tribes of such very prudential and powerful critics extant, I have thought proper humbly to request a suspension of their judgment, until I shall have endeavoured to exculpate myself from any supposed odium which I may have unwillingly incurred by these my poetical transgressions; but if, after a due submission to their superior taste, I am found guilty of a gross misdemeanour, I can only urge the goodness of my intention on my behalf.

Perhaps it may be considered as some excuse for those errors which the nicely attuned ear of refined taste will, in all probability, discover in these my early effusions, that the very first essays of my muse are contained in this volume. I do not mention this circumstance in order to extenuate any other fault than that of inharmonic numbers; if those there are, any such errors certainly

ought to plead inexperience as a sufficient excuse, because the divine harmony and smooth melody of poetical numbers is only bestowed by the muses upon those favoured mortals who have long accustomed themselves to their service, and courted their inspirations in the still solitude of their own minds. The jewel comes from the mine in a rude state, with its native lustre clouded and obscured by baser earth; but the hand of the experienced workman removes the dross, and bestows upon it the highest degree of polish it is capable of receiving, From this simile my reader will perceive that it is the matter more than the shew or form of the following poem that I recommend to his notice, and I will state my reasons for presenting it in its present garb.

With respect to the story or plot of this ballad, I have to remark, that the facts upon which it is founded coming to my knowledge, and being illustrative of human passions and their effects, and consequently affording an interesting moral, I had intended to combine them with others into a tale, and publish it with those to be contained in this work, as being perfectly consonant with the original plan of the publication.

But during a few of my solitary walks in

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