‘Sir,—Perhaps I have committed an error in
dedicating the accompanying volume to you without your permission, but if error
it be, the doubt only suggested itself to my mind when it was too late to be
remedied. After all it requires no permission to be grateful, and in the simple
feeling of admiration and gratitude, I have inscribed your name upon this
attempt at poetry. You may not, perhaps, remember that five or six years ago, a
nameless, friendless, hard-struggling stranger, alone in the wide world of
London, upon whom the gaunt fiend of Distress was scowling at no very great
distance, as a last resource before despairing altogether, enclosed a small
volume of rhymes and sent it to you with a statement of his case. You gave him
relief—that was some-
| 196 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘The gratitude expressed in this dedication and repeated in my letter is not of that sort which the Frenchman alluded to, “A keen sense of favours to come.” Fortune, which did not aid my exertions when I addressed you first, has changed her mind since then, and has not withheld the rewards which are due to honest labour—so that you are to take this dedication purely as it is intended and as it is expressed, of admiration which I feel in common with all readers—and of gratitude for the one act of kindness which shed a light upon a very dreary period of my life.
‘Believe me to remain, ever with respect and esteem, yours very faithfully,
