e soles,
Et fido acclinis consenuisse sinu._[1]

DONHEAD, _April 1805._

[1] The early editions of these Sonnets, 1791, were dedicated to the
Reverend Newton Ogle, D.D., Dean of Winchester.

INTRODUCTION TO THE EDITION OF 1837.

To account for the variations which may be remarked in this last edition
of my Sonnets, from that which was first published fifty years ago, it
may be proper to state, that to the best of my recollection, they now
appear nearly as they were originally composed in my solitary hours;
when, in youth a wanderer among distant scenes, I sought forgetfulness
of the first disappointment in early affections.

Delicacy even now, though the grave has long closed over the beloved
object, would forbid entering on a detail of the peculiar circumstances
in early life, and the anguish which occasioned these poetical
meditations. In fact, I never thought of writing them down at the time,
and many had escaped my recollection;[2] but three years after my return
to England, on my way to the banks of Cherwell, where

"I bade the pipe farewell, and that sad lay
Whose music, on my melancholy way,
I wooed,"

passing through Bath, I wrote down all I could recollect of these
effusions, most elaborately _mending_ the versification from the natural
flow of music in which they occurred to me, and having thus _corrected_
and written them out, took them myself to the late Mr Cruttwell, with
the name of "Fourteen Sonnets, written chiefly on Picturesque Spots
during a Journey."

I had three times knocked at this amiable printer's door, whose kind
smile I still recollect; and at last, with much hesitation, ventured to
unfold my message; it was to inquire whether he would give any thing for
"Fourteen Sonnets," to be published with or without the name.[3] He at
once declined the purchase, and informed me he doubted very much whether
the publication would repay the expense of printing, which would come to
about five pounds. It was at last determined one hundred copies, in
quarto, should be published as a kind of "forlorn hope;" and these
"Fourteen Sonnets" I left to their fate and thought no more of getting
rich by poetry! In fact, I owed the most I ever owed at Oxford, at this
time, namely, seventy pounds;[4] and knowing my father's large family
and trying circumstances, and those of my poor mother, I shrunk from
asking more money when I left home, and went back with a heavy heart to
Oxford