THE POEMS OF THE PLEASURES CONSISTING OF THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION, THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY, / BY SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.; ENTERED according to Act of Congreve, in the year 1840, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. CYTOKMY Printed by T. K. & P. G. Collins. CALIFORNIA 918 P7435 PREFACE. 35 A CLASS of ethical poems on the PLEASURES derivable from the mental faculties and emotions, appears to be peculiar to modern times and to British literature. Among the poems transmitted to us by the ancients, that which makes the nearest approach to the character of these productions, is the Art of Love, by Ovid. Had this poem been entitled the Pleasures of Love, it might have been supposed, not only as legitimately belonging to the class in question, but as being its earliest successful example. But if Ovid's poem even possessed the family name, it would not, in truth, be entitled to claim relationship to the British productions. It differs from them in characteristics much more essential than the mere name. They investigate the sources of our nobler faculties and feelings, and celebrate the enjoyments which those faculties and feelings confer. These are employments worthy of the philosophical and moral muse. Not so were the purposes for which Ovid wrote. It is not the nature of love, but the art of seduction that he teaches. It is not the joys of affection, but the excitements of appetite that he depicts To have called his poem the Pleasures of Love, would 395979 |