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HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY
NASH FUND

Το

WILLIAM ROSCOE, ESQ. M. P.

The dawn of Learning from Valclusa's brow
'Twas mine to mark: but Thou with eagle eye
Couldst follow, when her Glory climb'd the sky,
And tell the conflict with her deadly foe,
Dark Superstition · with imperial Pride

And Passion leagued, whose dim suffusion veil'd
The blessed beam, while bigot Fury steel'd
The heart, rebellious to the heavenly Guide.
This Petrarch saw; and long deplored, like Thee,
The Demon's fraud, that check'd the powers of Mind
Blending her light with deep Tartarean stain.
O may thy name assist his solemn plea

In Virtue's cause! and Sorgia's Flowers, combin'd
With Mersey's wreath, immortalise the strain!

Rathfriland, Nov. 26, 1806.

H. BOYD.

PREFACE.

THE form of this collection, distinguished by the common appellation of Trionfi, Pageants, or Visionary Representations, was borrowed immediately from Dante, and more remotely from the Provençal poets. From its unity of design it must be considered as one performance, and is among the first systematic pieces intended as correctives to the inordinate pursuit of pleasure and of fame.) The topics indeed are not amplified, as they would have been by a professed moralist; but from the examples in the body of the work, the general inference is left to be drawn by the reader. In the concluding vision, however, the lessons to be learnt from the various exhibitions are given in one view, and the scattered beams of instruction are collected together, that they may fall

with more effect upon the eye standing.

of the under

The characters are all real, except some mythological beings, such as several of the heathen deities introduced in the TRIUMPH OF LOVE, as owning the universal sway of Cupid. But the Poet probably considered them in the light in which they are represented by history, as the spirits of departed men and women canonised by the Pagan world; and under this view they may justly claim a rank in the procession. Probably this may be more easily defended to the rigid critic, than the introduction of such allegorical personages as LOVE, FAME, DEATH, and TIME, among personages merely human. But the historical pictures occasionally introduced possess this advantage, that they give the Poem greater variety, than in so short a performance could otherwise have been attained. As they are often grouped together without comment or observation, the judgement is