DEDICATION.

ΤΟ

JOSEPH ATKINSON, ESQ.

TREASURER OF THE ORDNANCE IN IRELAND,

&c. &c.

MY DEAR SIR,

IN the rites of Heathen

piety we are told that a Dove was propitiously received where the ability of the votarist was inadequate to an Hecatomb. Suffer me then to believe that in friendship, as in religion, the motive, not the

value, of an offering propitiates its acceptance; and that this little volume will be estimated by you, not according to its own worth, but according to that sentiment with which it is presented by ME At some distant day I might solicit your attention to some less "IDLE vision;" but the ardour of gratitude spurns the cold delay of protracted intention, while its impatient feelings call for an immediate avowal. I have therefore seized on this opportunity, not as the happiest, but the first that occurs of publicly acknowledging the many acts of disinterested. friendship I have received from your kindness, and of assuring you that I am,

with every sentiment of respect and admiration for the benevolence of your heart, the liberality of your mind, and the literary taste and talents you pos

sess,

Your obliged and grateful servant,

SYDNEY OWENSON.

PREFATORY SKETCH.

"Quelque foibles ecrits-Enfants de mon repos."

VOLTAIRE.

THE Romans had a term exclusively appropriate to poetical trifles, and the Greeks an epithet as exclusively applied to poetical triflers.

Neither the Moorish loftiness of the Spanish, nor the elevated gravity of the Italian literature, has exempted them from that species of sportive composition which, though