ADVERTISEMENT.
The Hill which gives title to the following Poem is situated in the western part of Dorsetshire. This choice of a subject, to which the Author was led by his residence near the spot, may seem perhaps to confine him to topics of mere rural and local description. But he begs leave here to inform the Reader that he has advanced beyond those narrow limits to something more general and important. On the other hand he trusts, that in his farthest excursions the connexion between him and his subjectwill easily be traced. The few notes which are subjoined he thought necessary to elucidate the passages to which they refer. He will only add in this place, from Hutchins’s History of Dorsetshire, (vol. i. p. 366), what is there said of Lewesdon (or, as it is now corruptly called, Lewson): “This and Pillesdon Hill surmount all the hills, though very high, between them and the sea. Mariners call them theCow and Calf, in which forms they are fancied to appear, being eminent sea-marks to those who sail upon the coast.”
To the top of this Hill the Author describes himself as walking on a May morning.
TO THERIGHT REV. FATHER IN GOD JONATHAN,LORD BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH,WHO, IN A LEARNED, FREE, AND LIBERAL AGE,IS HIMSELF MOST HIGHLY DISTINGUISHEDBY EXTENSIVE, USEFUL, AND ELEGANT LEARNING,BY A DISINTERESTED SUPPORT OF FREEDOM,AND BY A TRULY CHRISTIAN LIBERALITY OF MIND,THIS POEM,WITH ALL RESPECT, IS DEDICATEDBY HIS LORDSHIP’S MOST OBLIGEDAND MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT,THE AUTHOR.Jan. 1788.
TO THERIGHT REV. FATHER IN GOD JONATHAN,LORD BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH,WHO, IN A LEARNED, FREE, AND LIBERAL AGE,IS HIMSELF MOST HIGHLY DISTINGUISHEDBY EXTENSIVE, USEFUL, AND ELEGANT LEARNING,BY A DISINTERESTED SUPPORT OF FREEDOM,AND BY A TRULY CHRISTIAN LIBERALITY OF MIND,THIS POEM,WITH ALL RESPECT, IS DEDICATEDBY HIS LORDSHIP’S MOST OBLIGEDAND MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT,
THE AUTHOR.
Jan. 1788.