tion, so is it my first Attempt in Poetry, of those which I now give the Publick, if I except only a short Copy of Verses, address'd to your GRACE, and one more, call'd Apple-Pie, written, while I was at School or very soon after, and which is not inserted here out of any Fondness for that trivial sort of Poetry, but merely because it had the Fortune to be liked, and has by mistake been attributed to another Person; a piece of good Luck I never much envied him: All the rest, like this Tale of Lavinia, both those before publish'd, and those new to the Reader, have been the Productions of a few Days out of a very few Years last past: I did not therefore think it necessary, in the Printing them, to have any regard to the Order of Time, in which they were written, but sent them to the Press, as they fell into my Hands from among my Papers, and as I could get them out of the Works of Authors, that had publish'd them for me: Such as they are I humbly beg your GRACE's kind Acceptance of them, and that You will please to continue to regard me with the same Favour and Goodness, you have graciously express'd towards me on all Occasions. I am, With the most profound Respect, Your GRACE's most obedient, and most humble Servant, LEONARD Welsted. ALLAN RAMSAY PREFACE TO THE EVER GREEN 1724 I Have observed that Readers of the best and most exquisite Discernment frequently complain of our modern Writings, as filled with affected Delicacies and studied Refinements, which they would gladly exchange for that natural Strength of Thought and Simplicity of Stile our Forefathers practised: To such, I hope, the following Collection of Poems will not be displeasing. When these good old Bards wrote, we had not yet made Use of imported Trimming upon our Cloaths, nor of foreign Embroidery in our Writings. Their Poetry is the Product of their own Country, not pilfered and spoiled in the Transportation from abroad: Their Images are native, and their Landskips domestick; copied from those Fields and Meadows we every Day behold. The Morning rises (in the Poets Description) as she does in the Scottish Horizon. We are not carried to Greece or Italy for a Shade, a Stream or a Breeze. The Groves rise in our own Valleys; the Rivers flow from our own Fountains, and the Winds blow upon our own Hills. I find not Fault with those Things, as they are in Greece or Italy: But with a Northern Poet for fetching his Materials from these Places, in a Poem, of which his own Country is the Scene; as our Hymners to the Spring and Makers of Pastorals frequently do. This Miscellany will likewise recommend itself, by the |