and I published because I was told I might please such as it was a
credit to please. To what degree I have done this, I am really ignorant;
I had too much fondness for my productions to judge of them at first,
and too much judgment to be pleased with them at last. But I have reason
to think they can have no reputation which will continue long, or which
deserves to do so: for they have always fallen short, not only of what I
read of others, but even of my own ideas of poetry.

If any one should imagine I am not in earnest, I desire him to reflect
that the ancients (to say the least of them) had as much genius as we:
and that to take more pains, and employ more time, cannot fail to
produce more complete pieces. They constantly applied themselves not
only to that art, but to that single branch of an art, to which their
talent was most powerfully bent; and it was the business of their lives
to correct and finish their works for posterity. If we can pretend to
have used the same industry, let us expect the same immortality: though
if we took the same care, we should still lie under a further
misfortune: they writ in languages that became universal and
everlasting, while ours are extremely limited both in extent and in
duration. A mighty foundation for our pride! when the utmost we can hope
is but to be read in one island, and to be thrown aside at the end of
one age.

All that is left us is to recommend our productions by the imitation of
the ancients; and it will be found true, that, in every age, the highest
character for sense and learning has been obtained by those who have
been most indebted to them. For, to say truth, whatever is very good
sense must have been common sense in all times; and what we call
learning is but the knowledge of the sense of our predecessors.
Therefore they who say our thoughts are not our own, because they