May Day With The Muses

Excerpt

I am of opinion that Prefaces are very useless things in cases like the present, where the Author must talk of himself, with little amusement to his readers.  I have hesitated whether I should say any thing or nothing; but as it is the fashion to say something, I suppose I must comply.  I am well aware that many readers will exclaim—­“It is not the common practice of English baronets to remit half a year’s rent to their tenants for poetry, or for any thing else.”  This may be very true; but I have found a character in the Rambler, No. 82, who made a very different bargain, and who says, “And as Alfred received the tribute of the Welsh in wolves’ heads, I allowed my tenants to pay their rents in butterflies, till I had exhausted the papilionaceous tribe.  I then directed them to the pursuit of other animals, and obtained, by this easy method, most of the grubs and insects which land, air, or water can supply.........I have, from my own ground, the longest blade of grass upon record, and once accepted, as a half year’s rent for a field of wheat, an ear, containing more grains than had been seen before upon a single stem.”