Desirous of holding a medium both in principle and language, between that severity which forbids the existence of passion, and consequently prevents the merit of overcoming it, and that enthusiasm, which, dazzled by its wild and fitful splendors, mistakes, or wilfully confounds, in every page, its destructive fires, with the awful and lovely lights of virtue, the author has found difficulties in the execution of her work, which may not, perhaps, be accepted as a sufficient apology for its many imperfections. / Conscious, however, that they are not the result of presumptuous negligence, she ventures, with trembling diffidence, though unfriended and unpatronized, to meet the eye of candid criticism: assured, while her first attempt is read, it will be remembered, that there is a difference between the errors of inexperience, and the sins of incorrigible stupidity: and that the bird, who begins by trilling its wild strain, uncertain, faint, and low, may, if those notes are encouraged and well-directed, burst forth, at some future time, in all the clear and varied cadence of full and grateful song.