THE A POEM, IN THREE PARTS. BY JOHN BLAIR LINN, A. M. Natura fieret laudabile carmen, an arte Quæsitum est. Ego nec studium sine divite vena, HORACE. Albion Press: PRINTED BY J. CUNDEE, IVY LANE, FOR T. WILLIAMS, STATIONERS' AND T. HURST, PATERNOSTER 1804. COURT, ROW. 76. PREFACE. DIDACTIC poetry is moral truth clothed in the garments of Fiction. Its design more than that of any other species of poetry is to instruct, guide the arts, and to trace the laws of propriety and reason. Like prosaical compositions it delivers the rules and the lessons of knowledge, while it borrows the harmony and images of measured numbers. It has been generally considered as that species of poetry, in which it is most difficult to excel. If it do not inculcate doctrines and opinions which are strictly just, and which will be generally received, it will be condemned, and unless it present those in a manner pleasing and captivating it will fail in its design of instruction. The didactic poet who is successful must not only be gifted with the power of invention, but he must possess the taste of the critic and the erudition of the scholar. In order to render his subject the more pleasing and ornamental he may sometimes suffer himself to be carried away by his |