Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 1 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/134



Having been forced, for my own necessary justification, to trouble the reader with this long discourse of the reasons why I trouble him also with all the rest of the book; I shall only add somewhat concerning the several parts of it, and some other pieces, which I have thought fit to reject in this publication: as, first, all those which I wrote at school, from the age of ten years, till after fifteen; for even so far backward there remain yet some traces of me in the little footsteps of a child; which, though they were then looked upon as commendable extravagancies in a boy (men setting a value upon any kind of fruit before the usual season of it), yet I would be loth to be bound now to read them all over myself; and therefore should do ill to expect that patience from others. Besides, they have already passed through several editions, which is a longer life than uses to be enjoyed by infants that are born before the ordinary terms. They had the good fortune then to find the world so indulgent (for, considering the time of their production, who could be so hard-hearted to be severe?) that I scarce yet apprehend so much to be censured for them, as for not having made advances afterwards proportionable to the speed of my setting out; and am obliged too in a manner by discretion to conceal and suppress them, as promises and instru-