age.
Far, however, from rejoicing at this circumstance, I sincerely deplore it.
In all ages, and in every country, even the sturdiest offspring of genius
have felt the necessity and received the aid of a protecting hand of
favour to support and guide their first trembling and devious footsteps;
it is not, therefore, wonderful, that here, where every art is yet but in
its infancy, the youthful exertions of dramatic poetry, unaided and
unsupported, should fail, and that its imbecile efforts should for ever
cease with the failure; that chilled by total neglect, or chid with
undeserved severity; depressed by ridicule, starved by envy, and stricken
to the earth by malevolence, the poor orphan, heartless and spirit-broken,
should pine away a short and sickly life. I am not, I believe, quite
coxcomb enough to advance the most distant hint that the child of my brain
deserves a better fate; that it may meet with it I might, however, be
indulged in hoping, under the profession that the hope proceeds from
considerations distinct from either it or myself. Dramatic genius, with
genius of every other kind, is assuredly native of our soil, and there
wants but the wholesome and kindly breath of favour to invigourate its
delicate frame, and bid it rapidly arise from its cradle to blooming
maturity. But alas! poor weak ones! what a climate are ye doomed to draw
your first breath in! the teeming press has scarcely ceased groaning at
your delivery, ere you are suffocated with the stagnant atmosphere of
entire apathy, or swept out of existence by the hurricane of unsparing,
indiscriminating censure!

Good reader, I begin to suspect that I have held you long enough by the
button. Yet, maugre my terror of being tiresome, and in despite of my
clear anticipation of the severe puns which will be made in this punning
city, on my _childish_ preface, I must push my allusion a little further,
to deprecate the wrath of the critics, and arouse the sympathies of the
ladies. Then, O ye sage censors! ye goody gossips at poetic births! I
vehemently importune ye to be convinced, that for my bantling I desire
neither rattle nor bells; neither the lullaby of praise, nor the pap of
patronage, nor the hobby-horse of honour. 'Tis a plain-palated, home-bred,
and I may add independent urchin, who laughs at sugar plums, and from its
little heart disdains gilded gingerbread. If you like it--so; if not--why
so; yet, without being mischievous, it would fain be amusing