I did not, however, think it
prudent to give too many Letters at first and accordingly have been
obliged (in order to eke out a sufficient number of pages) to reprint some
of those trifles, which had already appeared in the public journals. As in
the battles of ancient times, the shades of the departed were sometimes
seen among the combatants, so I thought I might manage to remedy the
thinness of my ranks, by conjuring up a few dead and forgotten ephemerons
to fill them.
Such are the motives and accidents that led to the present publication;
and as this is the first time my Muse has ever ventured out of the go-cart
of a Newspaper, though I feel all a parent's delight at seeing little Miss
go alone, I am also not without a parent's anxiety lest an unlucky fall
should be the consequence of the experiment; and I need not point out how
many living instances might be found of Muses that have suffered very
severely in their heads from taking rather too early and rashly to their
feet. Besides, a Book is so very different a thing from a Newspaper!--in
the former, your doggerel without either company or shelter must stand
shivering in the middle of a bleak page by itself; whereas in the latter
it is comfortably backed by advertisements and has sometimes even a Speech
of Mr.
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