$ GENERAL POSTSCRIPT. 



will own the truth. I had refolved, when I firft planned my 

 Poem, to bring no inftances from any individual fcene : For I 







thought the nature of its compofition, as it excluded particu- 

 lar fatire, would not, with more propriety admit of particular 

 panegyric ; and therefore, by a flight alteration in the name, 

 and by fome other as flight deviations from the fcenery, I 

 .cautioufly mafked the Naiad in queftion. 



I will here give the reader another inflance of fimilar cau- 

 tion : Finding, in the fame book, occafion to explode the too 

 great fondnefs for exotic plants, I thought that the moil 

 poetical way of doing it was to exhibit an inflance fomewhat in 

 the fame manner in which Virgil introduces his old Corycian 

 Gardener: But to prevent all poflible application, as I thought, 

 I laid my fcene on the banks of the remote Swale, where I 

 imagined the tafte for exotics had not yet reached, or at leaft 

 had not yet been carried to any excefs ; yet I have been fince 

 told, that the neighbourhood immediately pointed out a cer- 

 tain very worthy Gentleman as the undoubted obje<l of my 

 fatire, whofe improvements I had never feen, nor even heard, 

 that, from the inclemency of the climate, his plantations had 

 fuffered in the way that I have defcribed. I have, there- 

 fore. 



