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THE

AUTHOR TO THE READER.

THE majority of the following Pieces, which. have been before much too hastily, and perhaps undeservedly, made public, are here collected and republished, solely for the sake of correcting many of their imperfections, and of rendering them (if possible), somewhat less exceptionable.

POEMS, &c.

AN INVOCATION TO MELANCHOLY.

A FRAGMENT.

"I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples extracted from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels, on which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.—As you like it.

SHAKSPEARE.

GODDESS of downcast eye, upon whose brow
'Misfortune's hand seems dimly to have drawn
Her tints of pining hue, to thee belong
The visionary tribes of busy thought,
That crowd in nameless shapes the mental eye;
Ah! teach me, gentle maid, with hermit step,
Thy haunts to find, and ever at thy shrine,

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