Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/145

Rh And this indeed, I not only find true by my own experience, but have also too many wittnesses of itt against me, under my own hand in the following Poems; which tho' never meritting more then to be once read, and then carlessly scatter'd or consum'd; are grown by the partiality of some of my freinds, to the formidable appearance of a Volume ; tho' but in Manuscript, and have been solicited to a more daring manefestation, which I shall ever resist, both from the knowledge of their incapassity, of bearing a publick tryal ; and also, upon recalling to my memory, some of the first lines I ever writt, which were part of an invocation of Apollo, whose wise and limitted answer to me, I did there suppose to be :I grant thee no pretence to Bays,
 * Nor in bold print do thou appear ;
 * Nor shalt thou reatch Orinda's prayse,
 * Tho' all thy aim, be fixt on Her.

And tho' I have still avoided the confident producing anything of mine in thatt manner, yett have I come too neer itt, and been like those imperfect penitents, who are ever relenting, and yett ever returning to the same offences. For I have writt, and expos'd my uncorrect Rimes, and immediatly repented; and yett have writt again, and again suffer'd them to be seen; tho' att the expence of more uneasy reflections, till at last (like them) wearied with uncertainty, and irresolution, I rather chuse to be harden'd in an errour, then to be still att the trouble of endeavoring to over come itt : and now, neither deny myself the pleasure of writing, or any longer make a mistery of that to my freinds and acquaintance, which does so little deserve itt ; tho' itt is still a great satisfaction to me, that I was not so far abandon'd by my pru-dence, as out of a mistaken vanity, to lett any attempts of mine in Poetry, shew themselves whilst I liv'd in such a publick place as the Court, where every one wou'd have