Page:Byron - Hours of idleness. A series of poems original and translated, by George Gordon Lord Byron a minor, 1807.djvu/13



N submitting to the public eye the following collection, I have not only to combat the difficulties that writers of verse generally encounter, but, may incur the charge of presumption, for obtruding myself on the world, when, without doubt, I might be, at my age, more usefully employed. These productions are the fruits of the lighter hours of a young man, who has lately completed his nineteenth year. As they bear the internal evidence of a boyish mind, this is, perhaps, unnecessary information. Some few were written during the disadvantages of illness, and depression of spirits; under the former influence, "," in particular, were composed. This consideration, though it cannot excite the