Note (return) — PREFACE.

I prevail'd, notwithstanding, that this word, whose anti-poetic influence is so dreaded, should be in the Book. About half a Century ago, there seem'd a degree of incredulity as to the possibility of Courage in a Taylor. ELLIOT'S LIGHT HORSE, at that time compos'd of Taylor-Volunteers. effectually overcame that prejudice. It remain'd to dissolve another still more irrational prepossession, that a Taylor cannot be a Poet. And this Volume will be a victorious Host against an Army of such Prejudices. Indeed the Force is greater than such a Combat requires: for stubborn as other Prejudices may still be, our litterary Prejudices have, in this Age, been rapidly giving way to Candour, Reason, Common-Sense, and the Evidence of Fact. We have long known that a Scotch Plough-Boy and a Milk-Woman7 could still be Poets of high and almost singular Excellence. And if Improbability were any thing against Fact, it would be far more improbable, that two Brothers should be such Poets as ROBERT and NATHANIEL BLOOMFIELD are, than that a Taylor should be a Poet. It remains then for Prejudice to vanish like Mists before the Sun: while the two BROTHERS sociably ascend PARNASSUS together; higher than ever Brothers have climbed before: I might add, each of them to an height which but few have ever reach'd8.