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PREFACE. |
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more distinguished for earnestness of purpose and intrepidity, than for any great display of literary talent; — the bold letters written by Emmet (the .elder), under the signature of " Montanus," being the' only compositions I can now call to mind, as entitled' to praise for their literary merit. It required, however, but a small sprinkling of talent to make bold writing, at that time, palatable; and, from the experience of my own home, I can answer for the avidity with which every line of this daring journal was devoured. It used to come out, I think, twice a week, and, on the evening of publication, I always read it aloud to our small circle after supper. It may easily be conceived that, what with my ardour for the national cause, and a growing consciousness of some little turn for authorship, I was naturally eager to become a contributor to those patriotic and popular columns. But the constant anxiety about me which I knew my own family felt, — a feeling more wakeful far than even their zeal in .the public cause—withheld me from hazarding any step that might cause them alarm. I had ventured, indeed, one evening, to pop privately into the letterbox of The Press, a short Fragment in imitation of Ossian. But this, though inserted, passed off quietly; And nobody was, in any sense of the phrase, the wiser for it. I was soon tempted, however, to try a more daring flight. Without communicating my secret to any one but Edward Hudson, I addressed a long Letter, in prose, to the * * * * * of * * * *, in which a profusion of bad flowers of rhetoric was
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