Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

то

GEORGE, EARL OF EGREMONT

F. R. S.

MY LORD

I feel particular pleasure in dedicating this Volume to you; it having invariably been the object of your life, to protect the Bark that laboured amidst the Waves of this turbulent World: but for you, my Lord, mine would now drive at random before the Wind; since the revered PILOT, who so long conducted it, is in the Grave.

With a due sense of the many Favours you have honoured me with, and of the regard you had for that excellent Officer,

[blocks in formation]

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION,

PUBLISHED BY A. MILLAR, IN OCTAVO, 1764;

With a CHART of the SHIP'S PATH from CANDIA, to CAPE COLONNA.

It is perhaps necessary to acquaint the Public, that the Author of this Poem, designed not at first to enlarge the Work with so many notes, and, to avoid this, proposed to refer his readers to any one of the modern Dictionaries, which should be thought most proper for explaining the technical terms occasionally mentioned in the Poem; but after strict examination of them all, including a silly inadequate performance that has lately appeared by a Sea-Officer, he could by no means recommend their explanations, without forfeiting his claim to the Character assumed in the Title-Page, of which he is much more tenacious than of his reputation as a Poet.

Although it is so frequent a practice to take the advantage of public approbation, and raise the price of performances that have been much encouraged, the Author chooses to steer in a quite different channel: it being a considerable time since the first Edition sold off, (notwithstanding the high price, and the singularity of the subject,) he might very justly continue the price; but as it deterred a number of the inferior Officers of the sea from

Can a Sea-officer be so ignorant as to mistake the names of the most common things in a ship?

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION.

purchasing it, at their repeated requests it has been printed now in a smaller Edition: at the same time, the Author is sorry to observe, that the gentlemen of the sea, for whose entertainment it was chiefly calculated, have hardly made one-tenth of the purchasers.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION,

Dated from Somerset House, October 1, 1769, the Year in which FALCONER sailed for INDIA.

THE favourable reception which this performance has hitherto met with from the Public, has encouraged the Author to give it a strict and thorough revision; in the course of which, he flatters himself, it will be found to have received very considerable improvements.

« PreviousContinue »