Nec pol ego Nemeæ credo, neque ego Olympiæ,
Neque usquam ludos tam festivos fieri,

Quam hic intus fiunt ludi ludificabiles.

PLAUTI, Casina.

-sane leve

Dum nihil habemus majus calamo ludimus.

PHEDRI Fab.

EDINBURGH:

PRINTED BY ANDREW BALFOUR,

FOR GEORGE GOLDIE, 34. PRINCE'S STREET;
HENRY COLBURN, LONDON; AND

JOHN CUMMING, DUBLIN.

1814.

1

PREFACE.

THE following Poem is presented to the Public with that diffidence and anxiety, which every young Author feels when the good or bad fate of his first production must check his rashness and vanity, or enliven his future efforts with the confidence arising from popular approbation.

The Poem is written in stanzas of octave rhime, or the ottava rima of the Italians, a measure said to be invented by Boccaccio, and after him employed by Tasso and Ariosto. From these writers it was transferred into