_ "My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main,
And bear my spirit back again
Over the earth, and through the air,
A wild bird and a wanderer."
1841.
To
Lady Gipps
This Work Is Respectfully Inscribed,
By
A Grateful Friend.
Preface.
The author of these pages considered that a lengthened explanation might be necessary to account for the present work.
He had therefore, at some length, detailed the motives that influenced him in its composition. He had shown that as a solitary companionless bushman, it had been a pleasure to him in his lone evenings
"To create, and in creating live
A being more intense."
He had expatiated on the love he bears his adopted country, and had stated that he was greatly influenced by the hope that although
"Sparta hath many a worthier son than he,"
this work might be the humble cornerstone to some enduring and highly ornamented structure.
The author however fortunately remembered, that readers have but little sympathy with the motives of authors; but expect that their works should amuse or instruct them. He will therefore content himself, with giving a quotation from one of those old authors, whose "well of English undefined" shames our modern writers.
He intreats that the indulgence prayed for by the learned Cowell may be accorded to his humble efforts.
"My true end is the advancement of knowledge, and therefore have I published this poor work, not only to impart the good thereof, to those young ones that want it, but also to draw from the learned, the supply of my defects.
"Whosoever will charge these travails with many oversights, he shall need no solemn pains to prove them.
"And upon the view taken of this book sithence the impression, I dare assure them, that shall observe most faults therein, that I, by gleaning after him, will gather as many omitted by him, as he shall shew committed by me.
"What a man saith well is not, however, to be rejected, because he hath some errors; reprehend who will, in God's name, that is, with sweetness, and without reproach.
"So shall he reap hearty thanks at my hands, and thus more soundly help in a few months, than I by tossing and tumbling my books at home, could possibly have done in some years." _