sir--happy to see you any time you are passing this way"--so saying he
bowed me out in the civilest way imaginable. In short, sir, instead of
an eager competition to secure my poem I could not even get it read! In
the mean time I was harassed by letters from my friends, wanting to
know when the work was to appear; who was to be my publisher; but above
all things warning me not to let it go too cheap.

There was but one alternative left. I determined to publish the poem
myself; and to have my triumph over the booksellers, when it should
become the fashion of the day. I accordingly published the Pleasures of
Melancholy and ruined myself. Excepting the copies sent to the reviews,
and to my friends in the country, not one, I believe, ever left the
bookseller's warehouse. The printer's bill drained my purse, and the
only notice that was taken of my work was contained in the
advertisements paid for by myself.

I could have borne all this, and have attributed it as usual to the
mismanagement of the publisher, or the want of taste in the public: and
could have made the usual appeal to posterity, but my village friends
would not let me rest in quiet. They were picturing me to themselves
feasting with the great, communing with the literary, and in the high
course of fortune and renown. Every little while, some one came to me
with a letter of introduction from the village circle, recommending him
to my attentions, and requesting that I would make him known in
society; with a hint that an introduction to the house of a celebrated
literary nobleman would be extremely agreeable.

I determined, therefore, to change my lodgings, drop my correspondence,
and disappear altogether from the view of my village admirers. Besides,
I was anxious to make one more poetic attempt. I was by no means