preparatory poem is biographical, and conducts the history of the Author’s mind to the point when he was emboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself:  and the two Works have the same kind of relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as the ante-chapel has to the body of a gothic church.  Continuing this allusion, he may be permitted to add, that his minor Pieces, which have been long before the Public, when they shall be properly arranged, will be found by the attentive Reader to have such connection with the main Work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in those edifices.

The Author would not have deemed himself justified in saying, upon this occasion, so much of performances either unfinished, or unpublished, if he had not thought that the labour bestowed by him upon what he has heretofore and now laid before the Public entitled him to candid attention for such a statement as he thinks necessary to throw light upon his endeavours to please and, he would hope, to benefit his countrymen.—­Nothing further need be added, than that the first and third parts of ‘The Recluse’ will consist chiefly of meditations in the Author’s own person; and that in the intermediate part (’The Excursion’) the intervention of characters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic form adopted.

It is not the Author’s intention formally to announce a system:  it was more animating to him to proceed in a different course; and if he shall succeed in conveying to the mind clear thoughts, lively images, and strong feelings, the Reader will have no difficulty in extracting the system for himself.  And in the mean time the following passage, taken from the conclusion of the first book of ‘The Recluse,’ may be acceptable as a kind of Prospectus of the design and scope of the whole Poem.

    On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life,
    Musing in solitude, I oft perceive
    Fair trains of imagery before me rise. 
    Accompanied by feelings of delight
    Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed;
    And I am conscious of affecting thoughts
    And dear remembrances, whose presence soothes
    Or elevates the Mind, intent to weigh
    The good and evil of our mortal state. 
    —­To these emotions, whencesoe’er they come,
    Whether from breath of outward circumstance,
    Or from the Soul—­an impulse to herself—­
    I would give utterance in numerous verse. 
    Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love, and Hope,
    And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith;
    Of blessed consolations in distress;
    Of moral strength, and intellectual Power;
    Of joy in widest commonalty spread;
    Of the individual Mind that keeps her own
    Inviolate retirement, subject there
    To Conscience only, and the law supreme
    Of that Intelligence which governs all—­
    I sing:—­’fit audience let me find though few!’