VERSES ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS. "cui pauca relicti Jugera ruris erat; nec fertilis illa juvencis BURNS, OATES, & CO., 17 & 18, PORTMAN STREET, AND 63, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLXVIII. 280. m. 153. TO EDWARD BADELEY, ESQ. MY DEAR BADELEY, I have not been without apprehension lest, in dedicating to you a number of poetical compositions, I should hardly be making a suitable offering to a member of a grave profession, which is especially employed in rubbing off the gloss with which imagination and sentiment invest matters of every-day life, and in reducing statements of fact to their legitimate dimensions. And, besides this, misgivings have not unnaturally come over me on the previous question; viz., whether, after all, the contents of the volume are of sufficient importance to make it an acceptable offering to any friend whatever. And I must frankly confess, as to the latter difficulty, that certainly it never would have occurred to me thus formally to bring together |