Juvenile Poems
1801.
To Joseph Atkinson, Esq
My Dear Sir
I feel a very sincere pleasure in dedicating to you the Second Edition of our friend LITTLE’S Poems. I am not unconscious that there are many in the collection which perhaps it would be prudent to have altered or omitted; and, to say the truth, I more than once revised them for that purpose; but, I know not why, I distrusted either my heart or my judgment; and the consequence is you have them in their original form:
non possunt nostros multae, Faustine, liturae emendare jocos; una litura potest.
I am convinced, however, that, though not quite a casuiste relâché, you have charity enough to forgive such inoffensive follies: you know that the pious Beza was not the less revered for those sportive Juvenilia which he published under a fictitious name; nor did the levity of Bembo’s poems prevent him from making a very good cardinal.
Believe me, my dear friend.
With the truest esteem,
Yours,
T. M.
April 19, 1802