cottage, or to some other contemptible object, whilst the world is
anxiously expecting from his hand a temple or a palace. Thus they
wonder that I, amidst the many great and striking subjects which
the world presents, should choose to describe and to adorn, with
all the graces of composition, such remote corners of the earth as
Ireland and Wales.

Others again, reproaching me with greater severity, say, that the
gifts which have been bestowed upon me from above, ought not to be
wasted upon these insignificant objects, nor lavished in a vain
display of learning on the commendation of princes, who, from their
ignorance and want of liberality, have neither taste to appreciate,
nor hearts to remunerate literary excellence. And they further
add, that every faculty which emanates from the Deity, ought rather
to be applied to the illustration of celestial objects, and to the
exultation of his glory, from whose abundance all our talents have
been received; every faculty (say they) ought to be employed in
praising him from whom, as from a perennial source, every perfect
gift is derived, and from whose bounty everything which is offered
with sincerity obtains an ample reward. But since excellent
histories of other countries have been composed and published by
writers of eminence, I have been induced, by the love I bear to my
country and to posterity, to believe that I should perform neither
an useless nor an unacceptable service, were I to unfold the hidden
merits of my native land; to rescue from obscurity those glorious
actions which have been hitherto imperfectly described, and to
bring into repute, by my method of treating it, a subject till now
regarded as contemptible.

What indeed could my feeble and unexercised efforts add to the