Page:The Life of George Washington, Volume 1.djvu/23

Rh wilderness preoccupied only by savages and wild beasts. These details can interest themselves alone, and only the desire of knowing the situation of our own country in every stage of its existence, can stamp a value on the page which contains them. He has, therefore, omitted entirely many transactions deemed of great moment while passing, and yet he is more apprehensive of having overcharged his narrative with facts not of sufficient importance to be preserved, than of having contracted it too much.

For inattention to composition an apology ought never to be necessary. A work of any importance ought never to be submitted to the public until it has been sufficiently revised and corrected. Yet the first part of the Life of General Washington goes into the world under circumstances, which might bespeak from candour less severity of criticism, than it will probably experience. The papers from which it has been compiled have been already stated to be immensely voluminous, and the public was already looking for the work, before the writer was fixed on and the documents from which it was to be composed placed in his hands. The impatience since discovered by many of the subscribers has carried the following sheets to the press much more precipitately than the