Ebook Powhatan; A Metrical Romance, in Seven Cantos

The author of Powhatan does not presume to claim for his production the merit of good and genuine poetry; nor does he pretend to assign it a place in the classes or forms into which poetry is divided. He has chosen to call it a metrical romance, as a title of less pretension than that of poem; and he is perfectly willing that others should call it by whatever name they please. Whatever may be its faults, they must rest solely upon the author. They cannot be chargeable to the subject, for that is full of interest, and dignity, and poetry. Nor can they be palliated by the plea of hasty composition; for he has had the work on his hands at intervals for several years, though to be sure something more than half of it has been written within the year past. Of one thing the author feels confident; but whether it may be regarded as adding to, or detracting from, the merit of the work, he knows not; he believes it would be difficult to find a poem that embodies more truly the spirit of history, or indeed that follows out more faithfully many of its details. Of the justness of this remark, some evidence may be found in the notes attached to the work.

Finally, with regard to its merits, the test by which the author desires to be tried, is the common taste of common readers. If they shall read it with pleasure, and if the impression made by its perusal shall induce them to recur to it again with renewed delight, he will care little for the rules by which critics may judge it, but will find satisfaction in the assurance that he has added something honorable to the literature of his country.